Visitor
by WARLOCK2552
Summary: Someone from the stars has come to their world. His arrival may have unforseen consequiences. Cross over with HALO.
1. Chapter 1

Authors notes: I decided to write on a whim really. I had pssted here on earlier but took it down in order to rtethink the plot. I also thought the idea of having a strange man being stranded in a strange land to be interesting, and well that's how this story came to be. Not sure wheather or not I'll continue this story but hey I like feedback so tell me what you think.

(* * * * * * *)

**_Helljumper,Helljumper, where have you been?_**

**_Feet first into hell and back again!_**

UNSC-FORWARD UNTO DAWN

The frigate was a mess. Numerous explosions rocked the ships super structure. The vessel was in bad shape to begin with. Being cut in half by a slip-space portal did little to help the situation.

The frigates aft section began drifting sideways toward an unknown planetary force of gravity pulled the ship closer and closer. At the forward section a lone figure in green power armor, Sierra 117 the master chief. The master chief placed the grenade pistol at his hip, and gazed ahead of himself. The chief along with the Artificial Intelligence Cortana was the only living souls on the ghost ship. Together they survived two halo rings, the fall of High Charity, and the Ark. The Master Chief was a SPARTAN. He survived where others couldn't. He succeeded in situations deemed impossible.

"John," Cortana Summoned.

"Yes." The Spartan answered

"This is bad," The A.I continued.

The Spartan looked behind him. The explosions were less frequent now but still severe. He grimaced in agreement with Cortana's assessment.

"I Know"

"It gets worse" The A.I continued "The Oculus; that glowing blue hole in front of us, It's another portal."

"Like the Arc."

"Technically," Cortana paused "yes".

"Explain"

The Spartan wanted the A.I to elaborate on their situation. He already knew the ship was in an extreme state of disrepair. Worrying about the situation wouldn't solve the problem, and remaining ignorant about it would get him killed.

"You remember Voi? Yeah…it's just like that."

This meant that he was arriving headlong into the unknown.

"Let's hope this heap makes it in one piece; although…our chances are slim."

**_When I die please bury me deep!_**

**_Place an MA5 down by my feet!_**

John didn't waste time responding. A slim chance was better than none. The through slip space was not enjoyable. John had himself within the ships bulkheads. The explosions stopped but the ship still shook. Wrecked components and other debris floated in zero gravity. The Chief batted these object away in annoyance. The wreaked frigate exited slip space at a sideways angle. When the ship stopped its rapid vibration the Spartan eased himself from his braced position. John felt a gentle tug on his body… gravity John made his way through the forward section of the frigate wreckage. He braced himself as the ship continued to rotate. John came face to face with a planet. The pull of gravity became stronger. Both john and Cortana knew right away what was happening, they were heading into the planet's atmosphere. With a sigh the noncom acknowledged that his current situation could not be helped, he needed to form a plan. The Master Chief wasn't eager for a repeat of his crash landing on halo. He wasn't eager to jump overboard and land on his ass again either. An idea started forming in the Spartan's head ...what about a jump harness? John still had time… he hoped. Finding the jump harness wasn't easy, the darkness and floating debris sought to stymie him every step of the way, however after a tense period of searching he found what he was searching for. The AI of course curious about what john was planning.

"Have you done this before?"

"Once."

**_Don't cry for me, don't shed no tear! _**

**_Just pack my box with PT gear!_**

It was another one of the crazy ideas that came into being when there were in these situations. The big problem was timing. Having a reaction time of twenty milliseconds made you fast but that wasn't the only problem. Jump too early and you got roasted alive. Jump too late and you became and you fell to your death. John observed patiently as the ship continued to heed the pull of the planet's gravity. The Spartan head loud banging noise headed his way. The soldier looked over his shoulder to see a sizeable piece of random wreckage coming his way. The Spartan dodged the object just in time to avoid being hit. John pounded the back of his head when he realized that he had forgotten something. The heat encountered when going into reentry was extreme. His fascinating and sometimes ironic penitent for being lucky came into play; the ship finished rotating when the aft section of **Forward unto Dawn** faced planet side. Still as precaution he got behind the bulkhead doors and forced them shut.

_**'Cuz one early morning 'bout zero-five!**_

_**The ground will rumble, there'll be lightning in the sky!**_

"Chief, this is going to interesting. I hope you know what you're doing." Cortana spoke

The Spartan shrugged we would simply have to trust his instincts and hope for the best. John kept waiting until he felt a subtle tug at the back of his head. Something was telling him that he needed to jump out NOW. The Master Chief forced the doors to open again; he took a deep breath and jumped.

"Chief we've got debris at six o'clock!" Cortana warned.

The Spartan forced his body to rotate, grabbed the grenade pistol at his hip and fired an explosive charge at the incoming debris. John discarded the weapon and grabbed a large beam of titanium alloy before it him through the visor of his helmet. More debris was incoming as the Spartan rolled his eyes; his life was always interesting.

"Look out!" The AI warned

The Spartan huffed with irritation.

"I see it!"

_**Don't you worry, don't come undone!**_

_**It's just my ghost on a PT run!**_

The noncom took the slab of metal in his hands and used it the bat away another piece incoming debris. This action caused john to rotate 180 degrees he was facing the ground once more. The ground was starting to enlarge, but john decided to wait a little longer. After thirty seconds he pulled the release and allowed the parasail to deploy. The landscape they landed on was a collection of rock and ash; it was another little slice of hell.

"Cortana," John asked is the ship's NAV beacon still active?

"Yes it is." Cortana acknowledged

"Alright, take me there."

The Beacon's signal activated a waypoint on his HUD. The waypoint originated to his left. A distance of seven kilometers wouldn't be problem. The Spartan made his way to the ship without any sign of discomfort. It took him half an hour because of the obstacles provided by the landscape, but he made it.

The frigate had obviously seen better days. The wreck was caught within the enclosure of a jagged crevice. The soldier could only speculate what caused the explosions. At this point it was irrelevant. The first task was to scavenge the wreck for anything john and Cortana could use or salvage. To their pleasant surprise, the ships armory was intact. The hanger was empty, not surprising since everything including the vehicles drifted into space. Some parts of the **UNSC FOREWARD UNTO DAWN** were inaccessible; this was attributed to the debris scattered throughout the wreck. John spent the next 72 hours clearing out junk salvaging gear, resting when needed. After four and a half hours of sleep, he would start working again. Food wouldn't be problem. There were enough field rations to last almost indefinitely. Dining for one didn't require much.

On the fourth day Cortana advised that they head out so they could at least get some bearings on their current location. John had some concerns about this, but he couldn't think of any better ideas. The Spartan found a duffel bag belonging to someone named Wallace. Corporal Wallace's contained the usual, clothing, grooming utensils, along with contraband. Said contents included cigarettes, a flask of whisky and pornographic magazines. The magazines were cast aside cast aside along with the other objects. After emptying the duffel bag, the Chief went about the task of gathering equipment.

John paid a visit to the armory. At first john considered taking an assault rifle. There were a lot of reasons to consider it. The weapon was robust and reliable; you could fire the weapon as long as you had ammo for it. The weapon also wouldn't jam if you remembered to periodically maintain it. The down side was that the assault rifle was lacking in the way of subtlety. The Spartan inspected a BR-55 battle rifle, he would be doing reconnaissance and the battle rifle would work rather well. The scope attachment would ensure accuracy at longer ranges. Firing a large 9.5 mm rifle round was an added bonus. The battle rifle fire the large rounds in twelve three round burst for each magazine, which not only meant it was accurate but also had a fast rate of fire.

John then selected a M7/s SMG. The submachine gun was a compact weapon that was lightweight and easy to conceal. This particular model had a silencer attached along with a red dot reflex site attached to it. The case less rounds that the submachine gun fired would ensure that the Spartan could slip in and out of close quarters combat situations with little trace of his presence Both of the weapons were also equipped with an auto zoom feature that smart linked to his helmets HUD.

The Master Chief started tapping magazines of ammo together in order keep his munitions organized. The combined total ordinance included fifth teen clips for the battle rife and twenty for the smg. He also packed a combat knife and a machete along with seven frag grenades and a one-kilogram brick of plastic explosives. John attached the knife to his left shoulder and set the machete behind his hips. And before he forgot he grabbed a tracking beacon, for his equipment as precaution against theft and in occasions where he decided to stash it away.

When the Spartan exited the wrecked frigate as he finished packing other supplies such as a tac-pad, medical equipment, a small toolkit for his armor, and food. He didn't pack much in clothing for the simple fact that he didn't need it as much as everything else. With his battle rifle at the ready john headed out.

"Chief," Cortana spoke "let's head east I've got a good feeling about that direction."

With an inward shrug the Master Chief went east like his companion advised. A hunch was better than nothing. After chasing the sunrise for an hour the Spartan found something that almost made him laugh. A Mongoose ATV fully intact and waiting for him to claim it.

"Things are looking up", The AI quipped "lucky us."

John inspected the vehicle for irregularities; everything seemed to be in place and fully functional. The Spartan straddled the ATV's seat and attempted to start the engine. Hopefully the fall from orbit didn't shake anything loose. To his good fortune the mongoose started without complaint.

The Spartan continued traveling eastward. The landscape changed from jagged rock canyons to dunes of rough gray ashen sand. The ash kicked up into a noticeable dust trail due to the speed of the vehicle. The Spartan noticed a silhouette on the horizon, he wondered if it could be a building or some other structure of some kind. As the distance closed, the image became clearer, it was indeed a building. The Master Chief brought his vehicle to a skidding halt. The building in question was a small wooden shack, judging from the cracked wood and rough shape of the door; the Spartan speculated that this dwelling had been exposed to the elements for a long period of time. John eased his way to the door; he didn't want complications if they could be avoided. Whoever lived here, would probably not take kindly to visitors early in the day. The soldier cautiously knocked on the door, no answer. He knocked again, nothing.

_**All right how about this!**_

The chief gave the locked door a hard kick; the door gave little resistance as it split in half form the force of the blow. The Spartan brought his submachine gun forward and scanned the interior. Dust and darkness permeated the domicile. The Master Chief activated his helmet lights; an old table grabbed his attention. A collection of random objects littered the table. Papers were sprawled over the left side of the table along with calligraphy brush and dried out ink well. The papers were either crumpled up or left half written with tear marks on them. One of the documents was complete. John held it up in order to study it in more detail. The letters were unlike the English he was used to amongst the UNSC. In this case however it was more similar to classical Chinese. This meant that he couldn't make heads or tails of what was being written.

"We should take these documents with us." Cortana spoke.

"Why?" the Spartan asked.

"With enough study I can translate the language. Besides if I can make sense of Forerunner data and a Covenant battle net, I can certainly translate these documents."

"Fine," The Soldier answered.

The Chief didn't particularly enjoy Cortana's tendency to make chiding remarks, but so far she hadn't let him down. In the center of the table was a small metallic yellow object filmed over with dust. The mysterious object was some kind of ornamentation shaped a small twin pronged fireball. John surmised someone had left place and purposely discarded on the table. For a moment it made him wonder if the previous occupant was in a hurry.

_**NO**_

If this person had the time to write and draft so many documents, then whoever it was left this mess here in order to send a message. He also suspected that the person who was here before him was female. The purpose of that message was lost to him. There was a small closed box at the right side. John pried the box open; it contained currency. The coinage was various values; the large gold coins were obviously the most valuable. The Chief tipped forward to account for the total amount. It wasn't exactly a small fortune but it was still substantial.

John left the table for the moment, in order to thoroughly search the house. The Spartan found a clothes cabinet within the bedroom. He found a black hooded cloak within the cabinet as he opened it. It wasn't exactly a ghillie suit but it would help disguise his profile. John noted the flame motif on the clasp the people here were obviously fascinated with fire.

The Master Chief exited the shack after gathering the collection of half written documents and the box of money. The Spartan straddled the ATV and started the vehicle. The noncom continued eastward, by now it was high noon and he had arrived at the coastline. The sounds of seagulls echoed overhead; John looked over to his left and saw a small port along the shore. Regardless of their technological level the soldier could at least confirm that these people were civilized; He and Cortana could at least extract some assistance from the people here. One thing that stood out for him was the fact that the inhabitants of this planet were human. This naturally led to a hundred avenues of speculation before the Spartan banished these thoughts from his mind. He had to remain focused and aware of his new surroundings.

There was a definite language barrier that inhibited the ability to communicate. Cortana stated that she wanted john to mingle, so that she could analyze the language in more detail. Although the Spartan don't have the mental capacity of an AI, he still able to pickup bits and pieces. However since Cortana was a being of pure intellect, she much more efficient at disseminating the language. By the end of the third day, Cortana was able to begin writing out a translation program. Conveniently this place's vernacular was a near perfect match to mandarin. After seeing hundreds examples of the written language she able to confirm her suspicions, this was going to be easier than she thought. However it was obvious that her companion was annoyed by how the local populace like to stare at him. And meant people were going to talk. In Spartans mind Mingling may have helped him familiarize his mind with the language, But His presence was already starting rumors. It would just be a matter of time before the said rummors caught the attention of some important.

Cortana was insistent that John learned the language as well. After a week he was able to read and speak the language some degree of fluency. After an aggravating month of learning basic information, he learned that he'd crashed in a crescent shaped land mass known as the Fire Nation. John also became aware that his current location was a town named Nan'an. When Cortana's translation program became proficient enough to enact normal conversation went about buying multiple maps. With a pen he had taken from the ships wreckage, The Spartan started marking important locations in English. The maps He purchased were three atlas's one of the Fire Nation, one of the Earth Kingdom, and Third one of The World. He unfolded a map of the Fire Nation that he had recently labeled in English. The Master Chief could read the local language well enough now but he still preferred using English. The Spartan studied the map closely in order to discern his next course of action. The Imperial City was a day's travel north of this location by ferry. And said ferry was due to leave at noon. John checked the horizon; he didn't have time to waste if he was going to the Imperial City he would have to leave now.

The soldier paid no attention to the leery and curious looks he'd been receiving since he got here. John was so used to people staring at him that it didn't faze him. However that didn't mean that the Spartan took a liking to it either. And to be honest a seven foot tall behemoth wearing a black cloak and durring the middle of the day was kind of suspicious. The Spartan boarded the ferry as the dock's wooden floorboards creaked under his immense weight, and in all he weighed over half a ton with kit and power armor. The Spartan paid the fee and moved to a secluded portion of the ferry with the ATV set next to him. John stood upright with his arms crossed. Some of the ferry's crew and passengers were wary of the tall-cloaked stranger who traveled with them, but he stayed to himself and didn't cause trouble. The sun was setting when Cortana maid an inquiry.

"So, Chief what do think of this place?"

"I haven't made a decision yet. We don't have enough information to really know either way."

The AI shrugged inwardly. Her companion was right. They had very little information on their current location right now, which was why the duo agreed to head towards the Imperial City. From the Fire Nation's capitol there gather a lot more information. Information was the most potent weapon on the battlefield and the more of it they had the better they would be able to adapt and survive in this new environment. John set his rucksack by his side and put the battle rifle at arms reach while he sat down and drifted of to sleep.

When Morning arrived the Spartan was already up. John stood by the ATV as the ferry was finally approaching the shoreline. The NONCOM checked the map of the Fire Nation that he had in front of him. From what he could gather the frigate UNSC FORWARD ONTO DAWN had crashed on an island. It was vexing that this ferry wouldn't be taking him directly to the capitol. By UNSC standards the transportation available to him on this backwater world was inefficient; then again he was from a space faring civilization. The most advanced technology available on this world involved steam engines, which were primitive in comparison to slip space travel. A steam driven water wheel propelled the ferry. John watched the shoreline become more visible as the mid morning sun began shining on his shoulders. The soldier remained impassive in expression as the day passed on.

When he arrived in the imperial city, John made a series of inquiries about a library. When he got there he expanded his research to subjects he considered relevant. His research into history was disappointing. form what he could gleen from the available information pertaining to the last century, it was all propagated. He kept searching until he found a book that was at least decades old. It was covered in dust and looked as if it might fall apart. But it contained the information that he wanted. Interestingly enough this book seemed like someone's personal journal. Reading the vernacular language was still difficult, but from what John was able to discern this was written at least one hundred years ago. It was apparent that the author's political views were not popular. The author protested the actions of a past monarch named Sozin. Apparently he had committed the genocide of an entire culture. It was something that had to deal with a person known as the avatar. This information led the Spartan to look into what the avatar was. Aside from all the mystical nonsense, apparently the avatar could bend all four elements. The Spartan's eyes narrowed beneath the visor of his helmet. He didn't know what bending was so he decided to look it up.

To summarize the subject of bending into the simplest terms; it was some sort of elemental telekinesis. If anything it seemed like something the soldier would have to take seriously. The Spartan's mind returned to the subject of the genocide he had just read about. The soldier's hands clenched at his sides. It was just like HARVEST, just like DRACO III, and it was just like REACH. It was just like the COVENANT. John made a decision; he would not be taking any assistance from the Fire Nation. He wasn't going to allow the technology and resources within the dead ship he had landed with to fall into their hands. That left the Earth Kingdom as his other option.

John had exited the library by the time the sunset. And while what he learned history him upset, the information he had gained was still invaluable. The Spartan had no intentions of being involved in the ongoing war that currently wracked this planet he would simply see if he was able to find assistance from the Earth Kingdom. And if not, he would simply wait at the frigate's wreckage and wait for an eventual evac from this backwater world that he was marooned on.

John took a couple of days to plan his trip to the Earth Kingdom. He decided against taking the ATV with him since it would only attract unwanted attention. And if he took the option of stowing away on a vessel then hiding it would only make things more complicated. John eventually narrowed his options down to a ship flagged for royalty the ornate prow seemed to signify the ship's significance. The soldier had observed the ship being loaded yesterday. It was likely that the vessel would be departing within the next day or so. John decided that he would be stowing on this very ship. Oddly enough The Spartan felt a sensation that prophetically told him that he was in for some interesting experiences. The Spartan shouldered the rucksack he was carrying beneath the cloak he was wearing over his armor, and quietly made his has inside the ship and made his way to cargo hold. It was likely that no one noticed his presence due to two factors. The first was special ops training. The second was that the ship was almost empty. When he entered the ship's cargo hold the Spartan moved to a secluded corner within the cargo hold behind some crates and relaxed and waited.

(* * * * * * *)

When John had woken up four hours later. He was aware that the ship was moving. He overheard various conversations amongst the crew. Apparently the ship was transporting someone who had the crew on edge. Apparently "Azula" was a name they all whispered in fear and anxiety. The Spartan was eventually able to get sight of her. Something struck as odd he didn't think that idle threats from a teenage girl would scare anyone. Apparently he was mistaken. Personally the soldier didn't much of Azula in his opinion, she was little more than a spoiled brat who was far too used to getting her own way.

Unlike the ship's crew The Master Chief still had a spine. And compared to what he experienced Azula was tame. These people couldn't comprehend war on the scale that he did. He had been fighting and killing for twenty-seven years. He had seen worlds burn, and with kind of experience you could safely say that there wasn't much that he feared. There was no doubt that the princess was talented and powerful but, in comparison to the special forces operative who had stowed away on the ship she was an amateur. The Spartan knew what war was in its truest form. There was nothing poetic or glorious about it. In the end it was gruesome, brutal and dirty. And as for intimidation, the Spartan would have been amused to see the princess try to back up her threats. However he had other business to attend to. He had to find a way back home. The problems of other people were of no interest to him.

The Spartan observed the crowd of in the deck from the empty crows nest as the princess was addressing them. Apparently she was sent to apprehend her brother and uncle. The Spartan shrugged what she was going to do was meaningless as long as she didn't involve him he wouldn't care. The Spartan waited until the princess had finished and threatening yet another member of the ships crew before he began making steps to exfiltrate ship once it had docked. The soldier took his time, there was no need to rush; no one was aware of his presence. John patiently made his way down from the crow's-nest. Just because the powered assault armor was heavy didn't mean he couldn't move quietly in it. The noncom moved patiently down through the ship, allowing various members of the ship's crew to move about their business without taking notice of him. When he had come to mid ship section the Spartan moved along the deck towards the port side railing. The noncom had his head on a constant swivel for anyone who was posted on sentry duty. The soldier closer to the railing and vaulted over it, he landed with a grunt. Sand particles jumped upward with the impact and the cloak he was wearing billowed outward as he hit the ground. John maintained battlefield awareness he had no intention of being engaged in a needless fight if it could be avoided. John moved up the stairs leading up the cliff. So far people had simply made note of his height and not his armor. The cloak he had taken from the shack earlier came down to his knees. And so far no one had seemed to notice. Then again you could often you looked at some one else's feet? The soldier continued his journey upward as if nothing happened. At the top of the cliff he saw a building that looked like a hostel. John weighed his options for a moment. He could stay here for a short while and gain bearings on his exact location and go from there. Besides he simply needed a plan of where to go. He needed to find someone with enough talent in the field of engineering. During that time John glared at the sky. And mentally asked himself what he was thinking. Even with modern facilities and equipment most would be more decided to scrap the FORWARD UNTO DAWN rather than repair and refit it. And the inhabitants here had only the barest grasp of science and engineering in comparison to where he came from. The paused and took a moment calm himself. He had seen the impossible happen before. Besides the people on this world might surprise him. John continued up the cliff side stairwell. He would have to make do as he went. On the bright side any information he might be able to gather would be beneficial to any rescue team that came to retrieve him. He walked into the hostel and waited till one of the staff acknowledged him. The person that addressed him was a woman in her early thirties. She walked forward and politely bowed; the noncom acknowledged with a nod of his shrouded head.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but our current guest's have us very busy at the moment."

"That's understandable," the Spartan answered "I don't plan on being here long any way."

The woman seemed to be grateful with John's answer. The soldier went to a stone table in the outer courtyard and asked if it would be too much trouble for some food to be brought to him. He didn't care what it was as long as the meal was edible. The meal that was brought before him was a small bowel of rice, some fish and assorted vegetables. He turned around to thank the woman who had served and then when no one else was around he took of his helmet. The seals deactivated with a snap hiss. John then set the helmet down to the side on the table. The Master Chief began to consider his options as he ate his meal. He was already across the ocean so he might as well check into his options here on the eastern continent. The Spartan wasn't entirely certain if the inhabitants of this planet could be of any help to him. The technology aboard the ship he crash-landed on was light years ahead of anything currently available here. Comparing a slip space drive to a steam engine was like comparing stone tools to ones made from tempered steel.

When John finished his meal he had placed his helmet back on his head. When began hearing a pair of feet hitting the ground. His first instinct was to engage the people behind as hostile vectors. However he controlled that urge by remaining calm the last thing he needed was a political incident. And as a soldier John had little patience for politics. The two strangers announced them selves with a statement made on behalf of someone else.

"The princess requests your presence."

"For what reason?" The Spartan demanded.

The Spartan's eye's narowed in vexation; It was only a matter time before would have happened. It would have been alot simpler if the people here had simply minded their on business. In a way it was only a mtter of time.

"She requested your presence, that is reason enough." The voice repeated sternly.

John's answer wasn't what anyone in Fire Nation would have expected.

"I don't take orders from civilians. Particularly not from stuck up children."

The Spartan heard the two strangers walk away. John wasn't afraid of fighting; in fact the battlefield was the one place he felt alive, however he also knew there was a time when and when not fight. And in regards to the current situation the noncom had decided to simply leave before it could escalate. Arguing with civilians never ended well. With that in mind John took a moment to check his map of the Earth Kingdom. He had been certain to make note of certain details such as where the Fire Nation colonies where located. The soldier was deep in thought as he considered his options. From what he could tell the Earth Kingdom seemed to be roughly the size of Asia back on earth. Which made for a lot of ground to cover on foot. It was at that moment that he regretted living the ATV behind in the Fire Nation. The vehicle may have attracted some more attention but at least it would have been faster then walking. He had no time to dwell on it though since a feminine voice interrupted his thoughts.

"So you're the one who just got here. I must say you are rather rude."

The Spartan's body tensed slightly, he didn't have time for this bull shit. All he wanted to do was see if there was anyone able to repair the ship so that he could get back to UNSC space. Somehow some otherworldly power dictated otherwise. John turned around to see a girl who seemed to be in her early to mid teens. When he saw the body armor she was wearing he shook his head with slow despondency, children did not belong on the battlefield.

From what Azula could observe the tall stranger in front of her looked as if he could definitely handle himself. Oddly enough he seemed to have an aura of quiet confidence exude from him. It seemed as if the cloaked man made no assumptions but believed he could do anything. Admittedly she was she was slightly impressed by it. There weren't people that she had seen around her with that characteristic. The cloaked colossus slowly turned around and seemed to look Azula over, as a warrior would inspect a potential ally or adversary. Oddly enough she saw him shake his head in what seemed to be in her opinion to be disappointment. This newcomer was interesting to say the least.

The Spartan was annoyed by this development. Some people just couldn't leave well enough alone. The master chief tilted his head to the right for a moment as he considered the facts of his situation. First of all this was just a conversation, nothing serious had happened yet. And there was no need to jump to any conclusions. He wasn't going to murder a child, but if that girl started something then he would defend himself. John made an inquiry with a harsh rasp in his voice.

"What do you want?"

Azula smiled slightly the man was direct.

I'm curious to know why you're here. It seems rather convenient for you to arrive so soon."

"And," the Spartan drawled out.

"And, I find that suspicious."

The Spartan snorted, this was a waste of his time.

"What of it?" John asked.

The princess was quiet for moment the man in front of her of damningly hard to read. This was partly because she couldn't see his face and the stranger didn't move at all unless he chose to. It almost seemed impossible. No one had that much self-control. And oddly enough seemed as if the cloaked giant was waiting for something. If the tone of his voice was any clue it seemed that he found her presence annoying. Another part of her psyche seemed to tell her that he was just daring her to try something. It was at that point that the astute teenager made note of the shoes or boot's he was wearing. They seemed to have been crafted with curious craftsmanship, the Material that of footwear seemed to be some kind of pearlescent metal. Azula was definitely curious now. She wondered what the cloak was hiding. And who the person wearing it was.

John turned his head back to his belongings and made his way back to the table to finish pack and head out. When he moved to execute this action he heard Azula speak to him again.

"Don't turn your back to me."

"This conversation isn't worth my time."

After he said his peace the Spartan moved to leave the hostel and make his way further into the expanse of the earth kingdom. That was what he planed any way. Apparently the princess didn't get hint, she called after him again in some vain attempt to exert her authority.

"I didn't say you could leave."

" I would advise that you drop the ego...It's a sign of weakness."

The Master chief didn't say anything afterward and continued to ignore her. However when he managed to grab his bag something instinctual told him to move. The looked over his shoulder to see the princess performing the same technique that he had seen her do earlier that day. John waited for Azula to finish the movements and then sidestepped to the right at the point she decided to release the energy from her fingertips. In moments after evading the attack John moved forward at speed that didn't seem humanly possible. withen moments, he had the princess pinned against the ground before she could react. The Spartan had one hand firmly planted on Azula's collarbone and the other holding a combat knife inches from her eyes.

"You shouldn't start a fight that you can't finish." The Spartan warned tersely.

The expression on the girls face said it all. Azula's eyes winded when she finally realized what happened. It was impossible...There was no way that anyone could have bested her so easily. The Spartan took a moment too looks the princess in the eye. The Spartan's face seemed to be a golden mirror and all the princess could see was her reflection. After a tense moment the Spartan stood up and walked off. This time the Spartan was certain that Princess Azula had gotten the hint. The Spartan made a parting statement.

"You're naive, an atittiude like that will get you killed."

(* * * * * * *)

Author's notes: First of all unlike in some Fanfictions. John isn't just going to go out and blurt out who is. And he isn't going to Talk about his background or his training. That's classified information. And to be honest that seems very out of character for him to reveal the details of the SPARTAN program to those without clearance. And as for revealing his name he won't do that unless he grows to trust the people he's with.

One challenge will be writing down what the Master Chief is saying. The reason being because he's a man of few words. Also it's likely our favorite super soldier will difficulty dealing with civilians. Let's face the man has spent most of his life in the military. Social interaction isn't going to be one of his strong suits.

The Covenant: the Covenant is a conglomerate of alien races the play as one of the primary antagonist in the halo series. They have quite literally declared a holy war against humanity in the form of genocide. The conflict lasted for over 25 years. In the end this group dissolved because of internal conflicts that degenerated into civil war.

Harvest: Harvest was the first human colony to fall in the covenant war. The planet was glassed soon afterward. To explain, the covenant quite literally enacted a scorched earth campaign on the entire planet.

Draco III: was a tragedy, the entire civilian population was killed before UNSC forces could render assistance. The UNSC retaliated be exterminating covenant forces on the planet.

Reach: Reach was the was the military headquarters of the UNSC it fell the last year of the fighting.


	2. Knowledge is Power Part 1

A word of warning: There is mention of some gruesome details in this chapter. So if you have a weak stomach and are prone to throwing up; then when you see the line **"The past twenty seven years." **skip forward for a bit.

Also I would like to thank certain people.

Vivid Dreamer: your insight is helpfull as always thankyou. And yes you are right it does seem that Azula was slighlty ooc in this chapter. (sigh) No one is perfect. As for John-117, we will get to see how he deals with this strange new world. XD

(* * * * * * *)

The Spartan moved through brush and vegetation at deliberate pace. A dim gray light penetrated the canopy as the NONCOM Ever since he had figured that some one had been following him. The Spartan had decided to go off the beaten path in order to loose his pursuers or if necessary deal with them and make certain that whoever was following him would stop. If it required lethal force then so be it. There was something about the girl he had met earlier. Something was off about her. The Spartan was not certain if he could place it exactly but something about Azula just didn't feel right. For some reason the soldier just couldn't shake the feeling there was something wrong with her. Something about Azula just didn't feel right. It was obvious that the girl was full herself. What was disturbing was the fact that she seemed so impassive at such a young age. The Spartan surmised that what he had seen was a facade. He had seen only what she wanted him to. It had intuitively occurred to him that maybe she hiding some from of insecurity. The Spartan brushed this line of thought from his mind right now his primary objective was to loose the people chasing after him. John wasn't sure whom it was but the people chasing after him had made a big mistake.

Finn and his fellow Yu Yan archers had been tracking someone who "Had failed to show proper respect" as he was told. So far from what Finn was able gather the unique boot prints had made him easy to follow. However the quarry he was hunting along with his compatriots seemed to quickly catch on to fact that he or she was being followed. The said person then decided to leave the main road and head towards the woods. At first Finn thought his target to be an idiot who hoped that a home field advantage would help to evade him. But the Archer was soon thinking other wise. Whoever he wasn't the man wasn't stupid. It was then that Finn had realized that they had all been lured here. The quarry they hunting had come to these woods in order to put this situation in his favor. This line of thought gave the archers good incentive to be cautious. They were going against a man who knew what he was doing. And from what Finn could see that man was good at it.

The trap had been set. After stashing his supplies into a secure place, John patiently waited for his pursuers to come closer as he cradled his battle rifle on the branch of a tree while the scopes auto zoom feature came in to focus though the "**Heads Up Display"** in his helmet's visor. The soldier slowed his breathing to steady his aim even further. Eventually the men hunting him had come close enough to where he was certain that he would be able to eliminate them in quick succession. The Spartan held his breath for a long moment and the world slowed the down; his finger squeezed around the trigger and fired the weapon at the chosen target.

Finn was caught by surprise when he head three loud bangs in rapid succession. He looked to his right and he saw the man standing next to him get thrown to ground by some invisible force. He heard the same noise again and the man behind him met the same fate. The group of Yu yan archers had been six in number now they were down to four.

John fired his rifle a third time and returned it to the magnetic holster at his back. He then removed the silenced sub machine gun from its magnetic attachment on his right thigh. The Spartan took advantage of confusion he caused in order to creep closer to the men who had been hunting him.

(* * * * * * *)

Azula observed the scene clinically; the men she had sent to follow the strange man she had met earlier were all dead. There little evidence that cloaked stranger she had met earlier had ever been in this area before. Azula was forced to admit that who ever had dealt with the dead group of Yu yan archers was GOOD. Most of the dead archers killed by an unknown weapon. Presently Azula had a contingent of soldiers searching the scene for any sign of whom they were dealing. However aside from the dead bodies and a small brass cylinder that exuded a smell similar to that of recently used blasting gel.

_**I don't know who you are, but I plan to find out.**_

For now her new acquaintance had disappeared and unfortunately the men she had attending to her person were unable to find any trace of where the cloaked stranger went. The princess had a feeling that he would turn up again soon enough. And in time she would teach him the prince of his errors.

(* * * * * * *)

John looked upon the horizon and saw the sky darken, followed by a loud gloomy rumble rolling through the air. The Spartan nodded it was best he get inside. While the **MJOLNIR MARK VI **powered assault armor made him impervious to something as minor as a thunderstorm, he still felt it would be prudent to seek shelter. The Master Chief took some time to look around until he saw what his eyes told him to be a cave nestled in a rocky outcrop on top of a hill just ahead. Climbing up the steep hill was not a problem. The soldier looked over his shoulder as heard a loud thunderclap permeate through the atmosphere. Jagged arcs of lightning danced across the horizon; and for moment lit up the night to a brightness resembling midday. The Spartan huffed in irritation as one of his hands slipped on a wet rock as a result of the rain that soon accompanied the celestial light show overhead. Eventually after an aggravating climb up the hill The Non COM Finally made it to the top of the hill and into the cave mouth. John ducked his head down and went into the entered the cave. The Spartan then activated his helmet lights. As expected the cave's interior was a far cry from a proper barracks. John took the black water soaked cloak of his shoulders and set it aside. The Spartan then set the duffel he was carrying and decided to do an equipment check to make sure that everything was in place. John looked over his equipment and double-checked to make certain that he was not missing anything.

"So john," Cortana quipped inside his helmet. "How are you enjoying the vacation?"

The Spartan huffed but didn't answer.

"You know," The AI continued. "I think we should send post card, and invite some friends over to join us."

"And which ones would those be?" John asked critically.

Cortana was silent for a moment before she decided that continue speaking.

"I was thinking that we should start addressing your lack of social skills."

The Spartan rolled his eyes. Cortana was close friend of his but She also had the annoying tendency to be a bit pushy. In fact John was beginning to wonder if Cortana had been starting to go rampant.

"I think you are starting to take an unhealthy liking to this place."

The Spartan let out a long breath through his nostrils as Cortana voiced her opinion.

"You need to lighten up, John. Don't you think pulling a knife on that girl was a little extreme?"

"I didn't hurt her, Cortana. If I hadn't stopped her the situation would have escalated."

"Well then, I am glad you could restrain yourself."

Afterward the duo remained silent. While his companion's point was valid he still stood by his actions. Once again his thought's drifted to the girl he had met when had arrived at the shores of the earth kingdom. If memory had served the Spartan correctly the girls name was Azula. From what he could deduce there was something off about her. It was almost like she was not in her right mind He wasn't sure why but for the time being. He had other things to worry about. In all honesty he had been starting get a little perturbed. It seemed that he in actuality had been going nowhere and that he was wandering about like a chicken with its head cut off. Another thing that the Spartan found vexing was the fact that often at times much of what he had said seemed to get lost in translation. To put it simply the inhabitants of this planet thought and spoke in a manner that was completely alien to him. John hated this planet it was most backwards place he ever been to. Not to mention that the fact people often gaped at him was also annoying. John looked out at the horizon and listened as the continued to fall and as thunder continued to crackle and rumble in a staccato rhythm across the sky. John's mind eventually drifted as it always did to thoughts of his fellow Spartans and the people he knew on a personal level. Mostly what drifted into his mind were the names.

**Sam...Grace...Fjhad...Kurt...William...Daisy...**

John nodded in acknowledgment that while he was well adjusted to the reality of death, their names still pooped up in his mind. They were the people had served with. They were also the closest people he had to family; he along over seventy other children was drafted into what was called the SPATAN II program.

The Spartan remembered a certain quote by a woman he knew named Dr. Catherine Halsey.

_**"You have been called upon to serve, you will be trained...and you will become the best we can make you. You will be the protectors of earth and all her colonies."**_

The past twenty-seven years had been long and hard. There was the occasional psychiatric evaluation to gauge his mental health and to see if he was fit for active duty. From a normal person's point of view it would have been a complete miracle that he was still sane, considering everything the super soldier had experienced. And a lot of it could make your skin crawl. John remembered that during a mission on the now glassed colony world of Serenity he had come across piles of human bones covered in blood and bits of meat. Eventually the Spartan along with his team found evidence that pointed to a Covenant client race known colloquially amongst UNSC personal as **Brutes**. The name was rather fitting, the brutes were a simian species who were animalistic in nature and had a pack like or clannish mentality; they were often prone to berserker rages. One sickening thing about these creatures was that they often made sport of their victims. And from what he had seen before that was exactly what happened. The brutes had taken to hunting civilians for sport and afterward the unfortunate victims drawn, quartered, and eaten.

It was all enough to make one sick to their stomach. In a way you could say it was disturbing that John could view these gruesome details in such a detached and analytical manner. However the Spartan knew that dwelling on what happened to these people would not bring them back and Victory was the only justice he could give them. Despite what seemed to be cold detachment, John did care about the people around him. Later in his career John had come to the conclusion that all members of humanity were worth fighting for and defending, regardless of who or what they were, and what he thought about them. Now at days he found it difficult to take human life with out a good reason. The only exceptions were self defense, relevance to the mission or because someone else life was at stake. John took a deep breath in through his mouth and out of his nose. He set his helmeted head against the rock wall and drifted off to sleep. When slept he often had flashbacks. Thankfully he was reliving memories of happier times.

As the morning sun crept the horizon John was checking his equipment once more for irregularities. So far he had found none, which as one would expect was a good thing. John spared a glance at the morning sun before he began to head out into expanse of the Earth Kingdom once. The world he was stranded on was so much like earth. And yet in it's own way wasn't. One example was the ecology. John remembered his recent encounter with an animal that seemed to be a combination of bear and platypus. The creature seemed to have taken offense to his presence and saw him as a threat to its territory. This of course put him into a fight he had wanted no part of in the first place. At the end of the encounter this so called **"Platypus Bear" **evenly got wise and backed off after a few hard blows to its side. In the end, the soldier was starting to wonder what kind of screw loose planet did he end up on. Being a **"Strange Man"** stuck within a **"Strange Land" **seemed to summarize his situation perfectly. Hopefully he would not have to deal with a merchant complaining about his cabbages anymore. In all actuality the merchant should have paid more attention his surroundings. It would also do the man some good to stop complaining. The Spartan surmised that perhaps the poor unfortunate merchant should start selling something other than cabbages. To put it simply, The Master Chief was going through culture shock. He was adjusting to this place but, it didn't that he found this world to be endearing.

(* * * * * * *)

**ONI prowler UNSC Hekate**

A pair of slanted hazel eyes belonging a woman named Leona Stark suddenly opened. She sat up with a start. Eventually Leona closed her and let out an exasperated breath through her nose after realizing that she had been the victim of another nightmare. her dream was the same one that reoccurred every time she remembered **"Shangri-La"**. Her home had been a melting pot of numerous Asian cultures and as a result of growing up there she was tri lingual. Her name not have suggested it, but Leona along with her sisters Yohko and Kasumi, or Casey as the girl was called, were the products of a multi cultural family. However like everything else involving the **Covenant**, it had ended in tragedy. Leona's grand father, the man who had been taking care of them had been left behind in fact he was insistent that she leave with out him and find her sisters and leave the planet. His reasoning was that in his old age he would only end up slowing her down. Unfortunately things did not go as they should have, when Leona had gotten to the spaceport with her siblings they got separated. Leona was able to get a hold of Yohko but Casey was nowhere to be found.

Leona had joined the **ODST**'s (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper's) straight out of boot camp. Leona had joined the military not just out of family tradition, but also because it distracted her from painful memories. when she was on a mission she was razor sharp and could quickly make sense of messy situations. That and a natural talent for leadership made her candidate for officer training.

At the rank of lieutenant Leona begun proving herself to be a capable leader and experience started to serve her well. Leona looked at the ceiling as the lighting in her room turned on automatically and the voice of the ship's resident Artificial Intelligence Bogart addressed her through the ship's intercom system.

"Lieutenant, the captain wants to speak with you."

"Right," Leona answered " Let's go see what he wants."

"He said to come over with full gear on."

Leona nodded slowly at this statement, it seemed as if the captain was expecting trouble. Then again **Helljumpers **always expected trouble.

The lieutenant made her way towards the ship's bridge. Her body moved casually with the weight of the combat Armour she was wearing. Leona stopped in front of a pair of bulkhead doors with a pair of marines armed with assault rifles guarding the entrance. Leona calmly walked to the console by the door to have her hand and retina of her right eye scanned in order to validate her identity. after a few seconds the two black screens lit up with green light and the thick bulkhead doors opened admitting the Lieutenant entrance to the ship's bridge. Leona gave a cursory glance to her surroundings as various technicians hovered over the blue screens of the consoles. Leona shook her head, she could never understand the appeal of looking over a computer screen all day. Leona made her way to the Captain whose attention was glued to the holographic display in front of him.

Captain Augustus Fairchild was looking at the blue holograms in confusion they had arrived at an uncharted planet. Planet in question seemed to be artificial. Someone had built this planet. there was only one civilization that he knew of who was capable of such a feat; **The Forerunner**. The Forerunner's were an ancient race in possession of supremely advanced technology. They had found ruins from this civilization on Sigma Octavious along with many other places such as the glassed colony world of Shangri-La, which housed a collection of ruins known Guren shi (City of the ancients). And because of how powerful Forerunner technology was many of the details of this dead race were classified "**Top-Secret**" by the **Office of Navel Intelligence. **In short, Captain Fairchild had no idea what he was looking at or dealing with. Even more strange was the fact that they were picking up an anomalous signal from within this planet that was too distorted to make sense of at this time. His attention was directed elsewhere when a female aid informed him that Lieutenant Stark was waiting at attention for him. The captain nodded and waved the lieutenant over to speak with him.

"At ease Lieutenant."

Leona eased her stance slightly and waited patiently for the Captain to continue.

"We have an anomaly on an uncharted planet, I want you and DELTA-3 on standby."

"Anything thing Captain? No offense, but this is starting to make my nose twitch."

"Everything about this situation is unknown." The captain stated "Which is why I want you and your team ready to go."

(* * * * * * *)

**Misty Palms Oasis**

The Misty palms Oasis was not that impressive in fact calling it a dingy little town with nothing going for it save for the melting chuck of ice and bar like establishment. the only other good thing was that it possibly the only watering hole for miles. The caught a small group of men who seemed dressed similar to the bedouin tribesmen from the Arabian Desert back on earth. The soldier had a suspicious feeling about them. It brought to John's mind the expression of "A snake in the grass". For now John ignored them, although for some reason the Spartan felt out of place. It wasn't surprising considering heavy suit of powered armor he was wearing beneath the black cloak. John was starting to hate the populated areas; no matter where he went, it was garneted that he would be the talk of the town. John soon caught sight of another strange animal. It looked like a giant white buffalo with six legs and a beaver tail at the back. Another unusual feature was the gray arrow pattern that ran along the creatures back. John shook his head this planet was familiar and strange at the same time.

As expected everyone looked at the Spartan as he entered the bar. John snorted in annoyance and glared across the room. his faceless stare was enough to unnerve many of the patrons enough to begin minding their own business. John walked up to the bartender and asked "How far is it to Ba Sing Se?"

The Spartan resisted the urge to roll his eyes when he got an answer he didn't like.

The man in front of him said "Far away to the east."

"That was quite helpful, wasn't it?" Cortana said sarcastically.

John started overhearing a conversation at an isolated table with five people. One adult and four children one of these kids stuck out like a sore thumb. The Blue arrow on his head was a dead giveaway. It was a face he had seen on numerous Fire Nation wanted posters, the face of **The Avatar**. John was only able to get bits and pieces of the conversation at hand but He was dead certain that a Professor Zei head of the department of anthropology at Ba Sing Se University was mentioned something known as Wong Shi Tong's library.

"It's worth a shot." Cortana chirped.

"Are we grabbing at straws now?" The Spartan answered sardonically.

"Do you have a better idea." The feminine AI countered.

Toph suddenly turned around to see a tall stranger in a black cloak. From what she was able to sense through herearth bending the person in front of her was wearing something some kind of metal suit that was very heavy it was strange but she almost didn't notice the person. Although admittedly the blind girl was busy being bored out of her mind. As she had mentioned earlier books just didn't do anything for her.

"I hate to break this wonderful conversation about books but has anyone noticed the '**Tin Man' **over here listening in our conversation."

"I hear you're looking for a library." The Spartan said laconically.


	3. Knowledege Is Power Part 2

After Toph had his presence the Spartan had felt a small group of eyes looking at him. The Spartan gave the blind girl a critical look for a long after hearing her call him **'Tin Man'**. Cortana on the other hand found it amusing. Her voice came out through the helmet speakers.

"That's the most fitting moniker I've heard for you Chief."

"I'm not looking for trouble." the Master Chief placated. "However if this library is what you say it is, then perhaps I could join you on this expedition."

However the group in front of him was more interested in what Cortana had said then listening to him. This was made evident by a stupid question.

"Are you possessed?"

John glared at the ceiling. Considering how backwards this planet was it would have been better if Cortana had remained quiet simply because the concept of an A.I. seemed to be beyond the comprehension of these people.

"Cortana is an Artificial Intelligence."

"What's that?" Toph asked.

The noncom felt tempted to slap his forehead. The best explanation he could come up with was that of a machine that could think for itself. But of course that led to the conclusion that his armor was possessed. He hated this planet dearly. In the end John decided to skip past this subject. The inhabitants seemed to be drowned in mysticism rather than science and logic. Then again John came from a world where science and technology were prevalent. It was all an awkward moment to be sure. At this time John felt it would be prudent to skip forward and find out whether or not he would be able to go with this merry band or not.

"Why are you so interested?" Sokka asked suspiciously.

"I have my own reasons." The Spartan answered vaguely.

"Well then if everything is set lets go." Zei spoke.

The Spartan along with the collective adolescents stared at him wondering whether or not this man was in his right mind. The Spartan found the professor of anthropology's enthusiasm to be a little disconcerting. John also got the feeling that the air bender had the same problem. Put simply the bald kid struck John as an airhead. John's train of thought was interrupted when he saw the anthropologist hover over him.

"If I may ask, what part of the Fire Nation are you from?"

"I'm not from the Fire Nation." The Master Chief stated plainly.

"Well thought because of that cloak you were wearing that you might be Fire Nation. Never mind, are you from Earth Kingdom perhaps?"

"No."

"What about the water tribe?"

The Spartan took a sincere effort to keep his temper in check.

"No, I am not of the Water Tribe. Nor am I an air nomad. I would appreciate it if you stop asking me these incessant questions."

"Oh, I'm sorry." The professor apologized sheepishly.

"We didn't get your name." Katara spoke.

"You can address by my rank of Master Chief Petty Officer."

"Okay." Sokka drawled "Lets just call you chief."

"That is acceptable." The Spartan answered.

There was an awkward silence until the water bender decided to introduce her friends. The one with a ponytail was her brother named Sokka. The bare footed blind girl was named Toph. And he lastly he came to find out that the avatar's name was Aang. When she had finished naming off her friends Katara then introduced herself to him. Once the introductions were finished, decided to patiently while the group continued to converse. The Spartan tilted his head curiously when he heard Sokka speak.

"Then it's settled. Aang, I do believe it's my turn. I'd like to spend my vacation," Sokka paused dramatically. "At the library!"

"Uh, hey what about me?" Toph protested. "When do I get to pick?"

"You gotta work here a little longer before you qualify for vacation time." The water tribesman said inconsiderately.

Toph huffed irritably but said nothing else. And despite Sokka's eagerness, Dr Zei mentioned ant important obstacle in the way of his current goal.

"Of course, there's the matter of finding it. I've made several trips into the Si Wong Desert and almost died each time. I'm afraid that desert's impossible to cross."

"Professor, would you like to see our Sky bison?" Sokka said helpfully.

"A sky bison?" The Professor exclaimed. "You actually have one?"

Upon exiting the bar behind him, John noticed a group of the same folks he had been wary of as when entered the Misty Palms Oasis. From what he could observe the group of suspicious men was crowding near the sky bison. The creature's growl made it evident that they were getting a little closer then it would like. Immediately Zei ran towards the group harassing the sky bison.

"Sand benders, shoo, away from the bison!"

The desert dwellers backed of and retreated to their sand sailers. They drove their vehicles across the sand by creating sand tornados to drive it forward. Shortly afterward the Spartan, the professor and the avatar along with his compatriots boarded the sky bison. John waited patiently for the other to board the the sky bison's saddle before doing so on his own accord. Eventually he heard the Air bender say something that he was skeptical of.

"Wow, shouldn't be too hard to a place like this out here."

The Spartan shook his head in his experience it was never that easy.

while the rest of the group was busy looking for a giant library in the middle of the desert John took the time to observer them. Dr. Zei wasn't all that hard to figure out. He struck the Master Chief as a man who by evidence of his enthusiasm and curiosity, enjoyed his work. The blind girl Toph seemed to fit the expression of 'What you see is what you get'. To be honest directness was always something that the Spartan had found to be refreshing. He often disliked how some people would tend to dance around the subject at hand. In John's honest opinion if had something to say then you should just say it. People always seemed to waste time with irrelevant details. Sokka seemed to be a little 'off' in the Spartan's opinion. He couldn't place it exactly but something about that kid was just odd. Katara seemed to be bit more mature then her brother, John also got the vibe that the girl often took a lot of responsibility upon her self. hopefully the girl didn't burn herself out. Aang John was not sure what to make of that kid. In some cases his enthusiasm could be commendable, however it seemed that the Kid might also have a case of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder.). In essence it seemed that Aang was sometimes trying to avoid the situation at hand. And in John's opinion that was dangerous. John looked around the horizon scanning for the structure he had seen depicted in the professors drawing.

John altered his attention to the blind girl when she spoke her frustration aloud.

"Does this place even exist?"

"Some say that it doesn't." Zei replied.

Toph's eyes widened in surprise for a moment before narrowing.

"Shouldn't you have mentioned that before."

The group had been riding the sky bison for a while now and there was still no sign of this library. Sometimes a myth was simply just a myth. The silence was broken when everyone overheard the voice of Toph perk up as she pointed over the side of Appa's saddle.

"There it is!"

This of course caught everyone's attention as they forgot that Toph was blind. When everyone looked to where the blind girl was pointing all they were empty sand dunes. The earth bender's actions then prompted a collection of annoyed glares that she was completely oblivious and apathetic towards as she continued speak.

"That's what it will sound like when one you spots it." Toph emphasized this statement by waving a hand in front her face.

John could tell by Katara's statement that she was getting flustered.

"It shouldn't be this hard to spot a giant ornate building from the air."

"You'd be surprised." The Spartan added.

It was at that time that Sokka noticed something through his telescope.

"Down there, whats that?"

John detached the scope from his battle rifle and glanced to where the tribesman was pointing. He saw what looked to an ornate minorette standing alone in the sand. it seemed logical that the library may have become buried under the sand over the course of many years. This reasoning convinced the soldier was inclined to agree that this structure might be worth investigating. If anything the library would eliminate this option from his list of possibilities. As they landed Katara made a despondent statement while holding the illustration of the building in front of her.

"Forget it. It's obviously not what we're looking for. The building in this drawing is enormous."

"You sure about that." John asked.

What do you mean? All I see is this tower."

"You're jumping to conclusions Katara. If my impression from what the good doctor said is correct then this building must hundreds of years old. And a lot happen over that period of time. It's likely that the building we're looking for has been buried under the sands."

John took a moment to look over the tower and make rough mental calculations as to how long it would take to excavate the structure. He took a look at the drawing of _**Wan Shi Tong's Library**_, and then returned his attention to the tower the more he studied the tower the he was convinced that they were standing right on top of the building that they were looking for. From what John was overhearing, Sokka's conversation with Zei confirmed this.

"What kind of animal is that?"

The spartan adjusted his attention to see what looked to be a fox a holding a scroll in its mouth.

"I think it might be domesticated." Cortana said aloud.

Strangely enough John saw the the animal run straight up the tower and in through a window. John tilted his head to his side, this was certainly new; the time last he checked animals of the canine variety were not able to climb at all, let alone walk on walls. Zei's excited voice seemed to start bring confirmation to the soldiers suspicions.

"I think that was one of the knowledge seekers. Oh we must be close to the library!"

Sokka took a moment to look at the drawing more closely and came to the same conclusion John did.

"No this is the library-look! It's completely buried."

John had a look of confusion about Zei when he saw the anthropologist collapse to his knees. The man was certainly a bit eccentric.

"The library is buried?" Zei exclaimed "My life's ambition is now full of sand. Well time to start digging."

John shook his head he knew that a garden spade just wouldn't cut it. They would need bigger tools and a lot more manpower to excavate the building. Thankfully Toph had said something that provided a much simpler solution to the problem of entering the ruin.

"Actually that won't be necessary. The inside seems to be completely intact. And its huge."

"How would you know?" John asked."

Toph tapped her hand on the tower wall while she leaned against the building.

"I can see through Earth Bending."

"Really?" John asked dryly.

"you're not really convinced are you?"

"I'm undecided."

John looked at Sokka as he came up with a way to enter the library.

"That fox thingy went in through a window. I say we climb up there and give it a look."

"I say you guys go ahead without me." Toph announced

"You got something against libraries?" Katara asked

"I've held books before. And I gotta tell you,they don't exactly do it for me."

"Oh, right sorry." Katara said sheepishly.

"let me know if they have something you can listen to."

John was quite certain that at some level Cortanna was laughing at the Irony of Toph's statement.

(* * * * * * *)

Entering the building was not as difficult as it seemed it would be. Thanks to Sokka's ingenuity he was able to fashion a grappling hook by tying his boomerang to a rope. John was the last on the climb up due the weight of his power armor and equipment. John looked down through the window as he overheard another excited statement from Zei.

"Oh it's breathtaking! The spirit spared no expense in designing this place. Look at those beautiful buttresses!"

John overhear the sound of childish laughter soon afterward.

"What's funny." The anthropologist asked.

"Nothing," Aang answered "We just like architecture."

"As do I" Zei answered.

After the group of children and the professor had slid down from the rope, John decided that it was finally his turn. John loosened his grip every so often to slide downward during the course of his decent. When The spartan came within at least ten feet of the floor John let go of the rope and made a loud 'clack' as he landed in a squat position with his left hand forward and his battle rifle at his side. The noncom looked up to see that everyone that he had traveled with was staring at him. The black Fire Nation cloak he was wearing had billowed outward to the side and revealed the Power Armour he was hiding beneath it. After a long moment of silence Aang was the first to make commentary.

"That's quite an entrance."

"I aim to please." The spartan said simply.

As for Professor Zei, he was quickly distracted by a mosaic pattern.

"My word! The exquisite mosaic handiwork of this tile rendered avian symbol..." Zei paused after seeing a collection of quizzical look's from the assorted company. "Eh,nice owl."

A series of rustling noises prevented any further discourse as every one in the group intent on exploring the library scurried to hide behind a pillar. A Giant owl walked over and looked to examine the rope that was hanging from the ceiling. The spartan shook his head as Aang craned his neck around the pillar. The kid was an idiot, his curiosity had over ridden common sense. when trying to hide, It was rarely all that wise to poke your head out. In his experience it gave snipers the perfect target. The Owl's voice made it obvious that he seen to avatar peeking.

"I know you're back there."

Aang gasped and tried hiding again in the vain hope that the Bird had not noticed him. Of course what Zei did was even more idiotic in John's opinion. The idiot actually walked out into the open and up to the owl to introduce himself.

"Hello, I'm Professor Zei, head of anthropology at Ba Sing Se university."

"You should leave the way you came." The owl answered "Unless you want to a stuffed head of anthropology."

John walked from the pillar had been hiding behind and and detached the battle rifle from his back and held it at the ready. For some reason he had a bad feeling about this situation. John eased his stance slightly but remained cautious. He wasn't about to allow himself to put his guard down in the presence of a stranger.

"Are you the spirit who this library to the physical world?" Sokka asked.

"Indeed, I am Wan Shi Tong, 'He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things'. And you are obviously humans, which,by the way are no longer permitted in my study."

"What do you have against humans?" Aang asked.

"Hm! Humans only bother learning things to get an edge on other humans." Wan Shi Tong answered "Like that fire bender who came to this place a few years ago,looking to destroy his enemy." The owl glowered over a sweating Sokka. "So...who are you trying to destroy."

Sokka made a panicked response.

"What? No-no-no-no destroying. Were not into that."

"Then why have you come here?" The owl spirit asked suspiciously.

"Um...knowledge for knowledge's sake."

"If you're going to lie to an all-knowing spirit being, you should at least put some effort in to it."

John tilted his head to the side as the verbal exchange continued there was no way, that Sokka was going to convince Wan Shi Tong into allowing them use of his library. The tribesman was trying to bullshit his way through the situation and John was fairly certain that the giant bird could smell it from a mile away. So it was understandable that John was slightly surprised when Sokka actually managed to convince Wan Shi Tong against otherwise kicking them out.

" Hmm, very well. I'll let you peruse my vast collection on one condition. To prove your worth as scholars, you to contribute some worthwhile knowledge."

While the others were making donations of there own, John opened up his rucksack and grabbed an empty shell casing; everything else was too valuable to part with. John looked to his right to see that Sokka had quickly tied an unusual knot. In response the knowledge spirit stared stared at Sokka as if to question the tribesman's intelligence or lack thereof.

"Its a special knot! That counts as knowledge." Sokka spoke.

However, Wan Shi Tong did not seem impressed with Sokka's inventiveness.

"You're not very bright are you?"

John could hear Sokka mutter contemptuous words beneath his breath after the owl had taken his donation and turned it's back to him. When Wan Shi Tong came up to John the Owl Took a moment to stair at him.

"Hmm." The bird hummed quizzically. "There is more to you than meet the eye."

For his part John looked back at the knowledge spirit without moving.

"I am not from around here." John said succinctly.

"Indeed, most human's don't put so much effort to hid themselves."

John held the brass bottle necked cylinder in the palm of his hand.

"And what might that be?" The giant Owl asked.

"A spent round of ammunition." John answered laconically

"For what?"

"A fire arm."

"And that would be?" the bird inquired.

"A weapon."

Wan Shi Tong looked at the Spartan for a moment Before grabbing the spent shell casing. As this happened The Spartan could see that Wan Shi Tong had given him a look of suspicion. Before finally walking off.

"Enjoy the library."

"That was friendly." Cortana said sarcastically within John's helmet.

While the others were all over the place John was slightly confused. To be honest he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be looking for in this place. John looked down to his left to see one the fox servants that attended this library, looking at him expectantly.

"I think it want's to help us." The A.I. spoke.

"This was your Idea." John riposted bluntly.

"Your bedside manner never ceases to surprise me, Master Chief."

John grunted but said nothing afterward, leaving Cortana to speak with the fox who had been patiently waiting on them.

"Excuse me, do you have a star chart we can look at?" The artificial intelligence asked.

On cue the Fox barked and moved down towards a room down the end of an open hallway. The room he was led was what looked to be a planetarium. Upon John's entrance Cortana beamed with satisfaction.

"This exactly what we need. Thank you, you've been a great help."

The fox barked in acknowledgment to this comment and wandered of elsewhere.

"How does this help us?" The spartan asked.

"This room is a map the of our current location. Or to be more precise the star system that we are currently stranded in."

"Couldn't you have done this earlier?" John asked in a slightly accusing manner.

"I was busy helping you get us out of the '**Forward Unto Dawn'**, as it decided to crash on this planet." The AI replied in annoyance.

"How long will this take?"

"What you see, I see." Cortana answered. "Just looked around the model and I'll see what I can do from there."

As John looked about the planetarium Cortana started to take in the information and analyze it at a thousand calculations per second. They were obviously in a star system that had not been mapped in any UNSC data banks. In short they were lost in what could be figuratively labeled as the middle of nowhere.

"So..." The Spartan asked where are we?"

"We are in an unknown star system." Cortana asnwered.

"We've already established that."

"You're not helping."

The private conversation was interupted by sound Zei voice. John and Cortana began to suspect that the good professor had way too much free time on his hands by the indication of what he said.

"This room is a true a marvel. A mechnical wonder! Its a planetarium that shows the heavens moving."

"Uh, this is beautifull, but how is it helpfull?" Sokka asked.

Katara pointed at the series of dials situated at the base of the machinerry.

"Maybe these dials repsresent dates and times. Sokka, try entering that date from the parchment you took."

Sokka Imediatly placed his hand over his sister's mouth.

"Shh...Katara! Not infront of the fox, he's with the owl."

The Spartan folded his arms and tilted his head in curiousity while the fox folded its ears back and whined in dejection. The Spartan continued his observation as Sokka took the scrap of burnt parchment from his bag and examined it before adjusting the dials. He then pushed the lever forward. Soon afterward The device went to motion and the room darkened.

"Hey wait. What happened to the sun?" Katara asked.

"Great, you must have broken it." Aang accussed.

It was at that time John's feminine AI companion, Cortana spoke with the demeanor of a condecinding school teacher.

"Actually you're wrong." Cortana corrected "What you're seeing is the effects of a solar eclipse. If you looked more closely you would note that the moon is in front of the sun, blocking it out. This event is something that doesn't happen very often."

The Spartan sighed under his breath. Cortanna Always had a tendancy to be a little condecending. Sokka however seemed to ignore this because he was more absorbed into his

own latter Sokka spoke out in a tangent of orratory

"The sun is behind the moon, it's a solar eclipse! It's litterally the darkest day in Fire Nation awefull happened that day, I don't know what but I do know why."

As Sokka continued speaking it became apparent that he was excited about this discovery. He had come to the conclusion that fire bending became ineffective durring the period of a solar eclipse. John was little skeptical of Sokka's reasoning for two reasons. The first and simpliest was that he never put much stock into mysticism. The reason revolved around the fact that he couldn't help but detect a hint of despairation behind this plan. The celistial event of a solar eclipse was not only rare but also only happened for a short period of time.

So even if they could get everthing together for this attack they be on a constant race against the clock that would leave no room for mistakes.

"You're taking a big gamble with all this." John pointed out. "This plan is centered around a solar eclipse. Even if fire bending isn't active during that eclipse. We don't know when the next eclipse will happen. Second I doubt the four of you would be able to take the entire military strength of The Fire Nation, head on."

"Which why we'll take this information to Ba Sing Se." Sokka explained "Besides we have the avatar with us, they have to listen."

"And if the government of Ba Sing Se does't feel inclined to agree?" The spartan spoke. " It takes more than words and a title to win a war."

The conversation would have contenued had it been for Wan Shi Tong's entrance.

"Mortals are so predictable and such terrible liars. You betrayed my trust. From the begining,you intended to use this knowledge for evil purposes."

Sokka replied by trying use logic of his own, which as one could plainly see, Wan Shi Tong did not find convincing.

"You don't understand. If anyone's evil its the Fire saw what they did to your library. they're destructive and dangerous. We need this information."

"You think you're the first person to believe thier was jusitified? Countless others before you have come here seeking weapons or weakness or battle stratagies."

"We had no choice." Aang begged "Please, we're just despairate to protect the people we love."

The owl spirit was unmoved by the avatar's sincerity.

"And I'm going to prtect what I love."

With a singular statement and a flap of his wings Wang Shi Tong decided that he would put and to this.

"Does he remind you of someone else we've met on Halo, Chief?" Cortana asked

"This is not going to end well." John answered.

"What are you doing?" Aang asked.

The owl spirit's answer was somthing that John did not find surprising.

"I'm taking my knowledge back. No one will ever abuse it again."

The spartan looked up and saw sand pouring in from the ceiling. He was correct the sitiuation had just turned bad.

"He's sinking the building we've gotta get out of here." Katara said in alarm.

The spartan snorted as he overheard the water bender state the obvious.

_**No Shit!**_

"I'm afraid I cant allow that." Wan Shi Tong answered, "You already know too much."

(* * * * * * *)

It was all insane really; John had started to conclude that trouble followed the avatar and his friends where ever they went. It was something that they seemed to in common. Dr. Halsey had once commented that he was lucky. His luck seemed to work both ways. John saw that Zei was begging Wan Shi Tong to reconsider his actions. thankfully Aang had been considerate enough to save the man from his own stupidity. First the avatar used air suction to move the professor out of the way. Then air bender whip his staff around and send the knowledge spirit over the railing. The Spartan looked up he saw more sand seep down from the ceiling. He looked down and shook his head. It was quite obvious that the situation had gone drastically out of hand. John looked to see that Aang and Sokka were rushing back to the planetarium.

"What are they doing?" The Spartan asked Katara.

The water bender stated the obvious.

"They went back to the planetarium."

"Is the date of an eclipse really worth all this?" John thought aloud.

"It just keeps getting interesting doesn't it?" Cortana quipped.

John saw that Wan Shi Tong Had started to chase Katara and Zei through the library. When the owl spirit had chased Katara to rope that she had decended from her had adressed in a condesending statment.

"Your water bending won't do you much good here. I've studied Northern water style, Southern water style, even Foggy Swamp style."

The situation was as plain as day Katara was in trouble. The Spartan rushed foreword to assist the water bender in her plight, John fired a three round burst from his battle rife. The weapon's 9.5-millimeter rounds had a substantial punch. And while the weapon didn't kill the bird, the screech of outrage definitely told the Spartan that it most certainly hurt. And as John had intended Wong Shi Tong diverted his attention to the direction of the gunshot. The Spartan fired at the knowledge spirit again to make sure that he its undivided attention. Second shot had obviously angered the giant bird because now he was using parkour to move his way fallen bookshelves. John kept firing at the knowledge spirit every so often to maintain its attention towards him.

"You might be familiar with water bending but I doubt you understand asymmetrical warfare."

"War." The owl accused. "All you humans ever aspire to is war."

The Spartan was actively wondering how he had gotten caught into the middle this crazy situation. All the sudden this giant talking owl that had been dubbed **Wan Shi Tong** had decided to throw a fit about how Humanity only used knowledge for evil ends. The Spartan snorted Wong Shi Tong may know ten thousand things but to be brutally honest the giant bird seemed to be in his opinion ignorant of two things the first was **Human Nature**. Humanity was a mixed bag; the so-called '**Knowledge Spirit**' had based his judgment on the actions of one man. Secondly In defense of the people John was traveling with they were trying to find a way to put an end to a one hundred year war. The second thing John felt Wong Shi Tong was ignorant about war. He knew nothing of the human condition. Second the giant owl spent his existence cloistering himself within this giant library; it seemed in the master chief's humble opinion that the giant killer bird did not have much experience with the outside world. Right now at this moment John was playing a game of **'cat and mouse'** within a labyrinth of books. At this moment the famed library was a mess, the situation was a mess; and to think that Cortana in her vast amount of intellect had suggested they come here. The Spartan crept along overturned bookshelves until he was directly behind the giant talking owl. Tradition may hold owls as symbols of wisdom but in reality they were not that smart. John shouldered the battle rifle and fired another triple burst. Wan Shi Tong screeched in pain and looked behind him with what the chief surmised as a livid expression.

The Spartan stood on top of a bookshelf; looked at the owl and shot him again. He never did have an appreciation for sanctimony. John jumped down as the collection of bookshelves feel to ground in a domino effect. The giant owl tried to peck at him as he landed however John was quick to roll away to the right and shoulder his rifle and bring out the machete sheathed at his lower back in a smooth motion from his kneeling position. The soldier was then quick to his feet and weaving in and out of bookshelves in a dangerous game of hide and seek with Wan Shi Tong. He led the Owl on a wild goose chase around the now wrecked library. At one point John circled a column behind the knowledge spirit jumped on the giant bird's back by grabbing hold of a tuft of Wan Shi Tong's feathers and pulled himself up on the bird's back. John then started to viciously stab at Wong Shi Tong's back with the machete he had recently unsheathed. John was quick to jump off when the knowledge spirit writhed from the obvious pain of being stabbed numerous times in the back. The giant owl turned around and glared at the Spartan with obvious contempt.

"You have vexed me for the last time."

What Wong Shi Tong didn't notice was that Sokka was sailing through the air behind him with a thick book in hand. As a result The Knowledge Spirit Bonked on the head.

"That's called Sokka style learn it!"

"Let's move! we need to get out of here!" The spartan urged.

John stood at the bottom and stood guard over the exit while the children made thier way out. Looked to see Sokka trying to convince Zei to move but the professor mind was maid up he was staying.

"Im not leaving. I can't. I've spent too long trying to find this place. There's not another collection of knowledge like this on earth. I could spend eternity here."

John nodded in aknowledgement of the professor's statement if anything, he could respect the man's dedication.

"Just go!" Katara urged.

John waited for the kids to climb the rope when it was his turn, The master cheif felt the cloak he was wearing catch on something. John looked behind to see that the giant bird was tugging at him with it's beak. The solider responed by udoing the clasp that held the cape on his shoulders. then he moved in at full speed and bull rushed his atacker at full speed. the impact sent Wan Shi Tong of his feet. The knowledge spirit's senses just in time to notice that John had thrown two hand grenades at him for good measure.

(* * * * * * *)

"Come on Tin man." Toph complained "I can't hold this up forever."

Thankfully John was already on his way out. The armored gaint landed onto the desert sands and his back, letting out a grunt with the impact. The soildier rolled into a kneeling position and got up to his feet. John could see Sokka hugging his sister in celebration at his accomplishment.

"We got 's a solar ecilpse coming. The Fire Nation's in trouble now!"

The spartan felt suspicion crawl into the back of his head and into his councious thought's something was amiss. John then noticed that the sky bison was nowhere to be seen. Aang question made the fact more apparent.

"Where's Appa?"

Toph sadly shook her head. when toph explained about the sandbender's ambush. Aaang exploded into a bad mood and started making accusations.

"How could you let them take Aapa?! Why didn't you stop them?!"

Toph made a brave effort explain the cirmcumstances.

"I couldn't! The Library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-"

The Avatar interupted Toph as he walked towards her.

"You could've come to get us.I Could've saved him!"

"I can hardly feel vibrations out sand benders snuck up on me and there wasn't time for-"

Aang seemed reluctant to see reason and John moved forward to end this conversation. Right now Aang was being selfish and imature. There was only so much Toph could've done in that situation. Apparently the Avatar was not willing to see the big picture, Becasue he snapped at her and conteniued ranting.

"You just didn't care! You never liked Aapa! You wanted him gone!"

Before any one else could speak, John caught everyone's attention with a voice of pure authority.

"That's enough! Right now finding Appa is a secondary objective. Our primary concern is is get out of this desert alive."

John had turned around to open his rucksack. The spartan looked up as he heard Aang speak.

"I'm going after Aapa!"

Then he saw Aang unfurl his staff into a glider and fly off into the distance. The Spartan shook his head in disgust and said a single word that surmised the level of his disappointment.

"Pathetic."

(* * * * * * *)

Author's notes: As you can see there will likely be some future arguements Between John and Aang. Right now the driving behind these verbal conflicts will be that john is more concered with the suvival of the group rather wasting time looking for Aapa. John isn't being insensitive it's just that he understands that Aang's obsession with finding the sky bison is not productive at this time.

Asymetrical warfare: It's a terminology used to descirbe combat situations in where the opossing forces are drastaclly disimiliar. The variables could technology, manpower, displine and training. As such it sometimes requires one to adjust their tactics to the new situation.


	4. The Ordeal

The lieutentant grouned as she returned to conciuosness. Leona squinted hard several times untill her vision began to clear. The Lieutenant clutched the sides of her head as she a throbing pain in her temples. Her mind felt hazy and it was difficult for her to think. The last thing Lieutentant Stark could remember was that she had been talking to her Sargeant , Silas. Her second in comand was a man of direct thinking. He was of the school thought the simplest plans were often the best ones. Presently she felt certain that she could hear his voice.

"El tee, are you alright?"

"Silas is that you?" Leona asked awkwardly.

"The one and only." The seargeant confirmed.

"What happened."

"Its a long story Ma'am."

"Give me the short version then."

"Okay," the sergeant spoke, taking his swollen T-visored helmet off. "we made a crash landing."

Leona studied Silas's face for a moment as her senses contenuied to clear. He had an angular jaw line along with a square chin. The seargeant had brown eyes and ginger hair that had been combed back from his brow. He wasn't the most genteel people around but he was earnest about his opinions and as long as you were upfront with him he would always have your back.

"How, what happened?" The lieutenant inquired. "Where am I?"

" We're in the ships infirmary. As for crash...Well, the hell if I know. Come on let me help you up."

The sergeant helped his C.O to her feet from the hospital bed.

"Shit..." Leona muttered. "what's the situation seargeant."

"We have good news and bad news."

"Lay it on me Sarge."

"You're now the ship's comanding officer."

"Ok I'm assumig that's pretty bad."

"Heh, that was the good news." Silas pointed out.

The Lieutantant began to feel irratated and decided to state the obvious.

"It's get's worse, doesn't it?"

"Other having having most of the cammand crew being dead or with severe injuries, along with every one else. The landing strut's are serverely damaged and the ships slipspace drive is fried." Silas answered.

By now Leona had regaind her bearings. From what the seargeant told her the ship had crashed somewhere and because of the damage they were going to be stuck for a while. The situation could not be helped. The best they do for now is adapt to the situation and make what ever repairs that could and hope that someone could pick up their distress beacon. Leona shook her head she was begining to wonder what else could go wrong.

"Is there anything else I should know about."

"Lets get you to the CIC ma'am, you'll have to see this to beleive it."

Leona's eyebrows raised up ward for a moment aparently things just got intersting.

"What do you mean? Just tell me."

" We've received a distress signal."

"And..."

"Just follow me ma'am. Like I said this will be hard to beleive."

Leona sighed and followed Silas through the ships corridors and into the CIC of The UNSC Hekate . Eventually they came to a tech droning over the monitor of a communications console. Silas then comanded the tech to play the distress signal they had come across.

"The liutenants here. Play the message."

"Yes sir." The tech replied.

"Mayday Mayday...Imediate Evac...Foreward Unto Dawn...117."

Leona eyes widened to the point that it seemed they might pop out of their sockets.

"Is this legit seargeant?"

"I shit you not ma'am, this is exactly what we found." Silas answered.

"Can you isolate the signal?" The liutenant asked "Do you know where it originated."

The Helljumpers looked at the technical officer expectantly.

"Well ensign do you have something for us or not?" Silas asked.

"Yes sir," The ensign answered "I belive I can. Before we crashed the captain had us launch some recon satelites in orbit around the planet."

"You haven't answered our question ensign." Leona pointed out.

The tech typed in a list of comands on the keyboard and showed a rotating globe which was presumably the planet. The display showed two blinking red dots.

"We have two signals. One is that message that's been looped. The other is a generic distress beacon."

"Okay, now where gettting somewhere." Leona spoke "What else can you tell me?"

"One of the signals is moving however I am unable to give you an exact location ma'am, I'm sorry."

"Can you show us our location?"

The tech typed in another set of commands. Leona leaned closer to see a blue dot blinking on the screen. From what the liutenant could see the two red dots were separated by an ocean. the red dot that the Hekate was closest to was on the eastern contenant. And unfortunately the distance seperating them was at least a few hundred kilometers.

"Do you know which one is moving?"

The ensign typed in another group of comands that showed a a blue segmented square higlight the red dot on the eastern contenant.

"Well done, see if you can make contact with them inform me when your able to. I will be in the hanger." Leona commanded

"Yes ma'am."

"This is going to be interesting." The sargeant spoke.

"No doubt."

(* * * * * * *)

_**Some where in the middle of the Si Wong desert.**_

As the only adult in the group John knew that the wellfare of the children that he was traveling with was his responsibility. That not only meant keeping them safe but also getting every one out of this situation alive. Luckily John had been wise enough to bring his possesions with him. The Spartan unshouldered the rucksack, grabbed the zipper and open it up. Aside from the munitions he had taken with him he had enough food for himself to last four days.

_**Not nearly enough.**_

John himself could manage being with out food well enough but with only two canteens of water he wasn't sure how well he could pull this off. He noticed that Katara had a water skin so perhaps the water would last a little longer. The master cheif took a moment to remeber his training. The first thing that popped into his mind was that they should be trazveling at night the reasoning being that temperature would be more bearable and it would also be easier to navigate through the desert through aid of the stars. How ever he kicked himself mentally when a snag became apparent to him. He did not have a map of the night sky for this world. He knew that they could just walk out in the middle of the day his power armnour would be able to regulate his temperature in this environment. However the kids he was traveling with did not have that luxury in this situation. He was also well aware that were not Spartans. John took more time to think. If experiance had taught him anything; it was that there was always a solution. You just had to look for it. And that didn't happen then you made a solution through the sheer force of your own will. John was not wasn't how he would pull this off but he would get everyone out or die trying. Failure was never an option for him neither was leaving any one behind.

John walked towards Katara. She seemed to be the most responsible member of the group. And to be honest he knew that hee was going to need her help. Collectively their best chance for survival required the collective of efforts of everyone. John was severly tempted to chase after Aang and forcefully drag back to the rest of the group but he understood that right now he was needed most at his current position. However when this fiasco was over he was going to have a long harsh talk with the Airbender about being responsible. that however would have to wait since there was more pressing issues curently at hand.

"We'd better start walking." Katara spoke. "we're the only one's who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se."

"Agreed." John aknowledged " We can't just stand here. At the very least we need to find shelter."

John took point at the head of group he really didn't have any idea of where to go, But as much he was irrated with Aang irrated, John was not going to be calloues and leave the kid out in the middle of the desert to die. John felt a tinge of anoyance when he heard Sokka speak.

"You think if we dig out the giant owl, he'll give a ride?"

"Would you like to find out?" Cortana asked "We can wait right here if you want."

"No,no; Walking in the middle of a desert and being roasted alive is fine by me."

"I think Katara is the brains of her family." The A.I. said inside John's helmet.

John didn't reply to her coment. For the coarse of an hour the group contintued walking in the direction that Aang took off in. The Master Cheif had halted every so often for two reasons. the first was to allow three kids in tow to catch up with his own lengthy gait. The second was to obeserve how they were doing in the current situation. And right now it was not good all three of them were looking fatigued and were no doubt suffering from the effects of dehydration. They needed to stop for moment. Despite being to keep this pace up for hours on end John that the three kids behind him were at the limits of there endurance. Sokka stoped to take the flying- lemur of his back and use his wings as an improvised umbrella to ward off the shade. At that very moment john was kicking him self. He had sorely wished that he had not left that cloak behind. Toph being blind had the unfortunate ocurance of bumping into the oblivious tribesman.

"Can't you watch where you're..." Sokka fell sielent as he relized who he was talking to.

"No."

" ."

"Come on guys, we've got to stick together."

John noticed that Sokka and Toph had become adhered together through their sweaty clothing. The tribesman was despairately pushing Toph away from him in order to sepairate himself from her. The scene would have been comical if the circumstances weren't so dire.

"If I sweat anymore, I don't think sticking together will be a problem."

The irratated earthbender solved the problem by placing her hand on sokka's face and giving him a hard shove.

"Katara, can I have some more water?" Toph asked.

"Okay, but we've got to try to conserve it."

Katara was about to open her water skin when John Interjected.

'Hold on."

John took the ruck sack from his shoulders and opened it. He rumaged through the bags contents for a moment before grabing one of the two Canteens he had filled up earlier at the Oasis.

"Here," John spoke handing the canteen to Katara. "Every one take one sip of this. We need to make it last."

When Katara had finished he took the canteen and passed it to Sokka. When the tribesman went to drink John felt the need to remind him to take 'one sip' like he had mentioned earlier. Sokka glared at hime for a moment but did as commanded.

"We don't have much. And like your sister said, we need to conserve what we have."

John went to check Toph. From the looks of her, the girl was in sad shape. John handed Toph the canteen,while he grabbed a shirt from his bag. John didn't care that his shirt was going to get dirty it wasn'tlike he was going to where it all that often any way.

"Are you alright?" John asked as he gently dabbed the shirt on her forehead."

The earth bender made a brave face.

"I'm fine."

"No," John disagreed "you're not, I want you to take another sip of this before we do anything esle."

Katara looked John curiously for a moment. Despite his monsterous stature and the way he fought with Wong Shi Tong. She was seeing and immense amount of gentleness from him as he tended to Toph. She wasn't sure why but Katara felt a tinge of compassion for him. It seemed that durring the course of some terrible event that something special was lost. She knew because the something simlar had happened to her.

After Toph had taken a second sip from the canteen John nodded, showing that he was satisfied. He then screwed the lid back on and turned to adress everyone.

"Look I know this is a bad situation. And we dont have a lot to go between us..." The Spartan paused for a moment when he saw what would soon be more proof of just odd Sokka really was.

"Not any more! Look!"

John and Katara turned to look at Sokka and see just what the strange kid was up to. The tribesman walked up to a cactus with a machete in hand he then cut off a bowel like section from the plant and started drinking the liquid inside. Katara being the sensible one of the siblings at this time tried to say something. her protest however were in vain. Because as it soon turned out Sokka's Impulsiveness had won over reason.

"Sokka,wait! You shouldn'y be eating strange plants."

Sokka was oblivious to his sister's protest as he conteniued happily guzzling down cactus juice with Momo. Sokka cut off another section from the cactus and happily offed it to his sister.

"There's water traped inside these!"

Katara warily took a step back.

"I don't know."

Sokka spoke while cactus juice dribbled down his chin.

"Suit yourself. It's very thirst quenching though."

After speaking to Katara Sokka had a smile simliar to the one you found on the face of a used car salesmen. Then his left dialated. John saw this and imdiately deduced that the cactus juice was a halucinagen, right at that moment moment Sokka shook his head rappidly and fell down over himself. Sokka soon began talking in a tone that sugested that they recording a comercial in the middle of the desert.

"Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya! Nothings quenchier."

Sokka then started to crawl along the ground like a caterpiller before coming back up talk some more with the same salesmen smile he had worn earlier

"Its the quenchiest!"

This caused Cortana to speak through her campanion's helmet speaker's in edivident amusement.

"I can't decide whether he's mentally challenged or just too stupid to let live."

Katara seemed agree when she gave her brother an odd look before taking the bowl of catus juice from him and pouring it out.

"Okay I think you've had enough."

"Who lit Toph on fire?" Sokka said distractedly.

The Spartan was tempted to slap his visor. Something was definately wrong with that kid. Katara was about to make a reply before an odd noise cause her to look and see the flying lemur fly rappidly in circles before plumeted face first in to the ground. Katara walked up and cradled the uncious took a breath through his nose. He was not trained to be a babysitter.

"Can I have some of that cactus juice." Toph asked.

"I dont think thats a good Idea." Katara said putting an arm around her friends shoulder. "Come on we need to find Aang."

John waited for a moment while Katara dragged Toph away with her. Unfortunately Sokka neglected to follow and staired into space at the sand.

"How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean."

Katara sighed and went to fetch her brother. John was little quicker on the draw and waved katara off.

"I'm on it."

The spartan put his ruck sack back on his shoulders and walked to grab Sokka. John grabed the tribesman and hefted him over his shoulder like dead weight. The Master Chief then followed after Katara shaking his head. The situation was becoming a bit tedious for his liking. After couple of minutes John simply dropped Sokka. The kid was almost too annoying to deal with. Luckily enough Sokka was able to walk under his power. The sound of a sonic boom out in the distace grabbed everyone's attention. The group then saw a mushroom cloud of dust pop up and bloom over the horizon.

"What was that?" Katara asked.

"What? What is what?"

"It's a giant mushroom!" Sokka said excitedly. "Maybe it's friendly!"

John just shook his head. Sokka was still under the psychodelic effects of the cactus juice. Katara led toph away while Sokka began worshiping the mushroom cloud.

"Friendly mushroom! Mushy giant friend!"

John glared upward for a moment before draging Sokka off by the back of his shirt. After an another hour John stoped the group and had every one take another drink of water. John gazed at the horizon; it was nearly twilight. John was slightly impressed by Katara's behaviour, despite was the fiasco's of this situation she had remained calm and kept her head. She took charge of the situation. Johnhad always had measure of repsect for people who the ability to rise to the ocasion. John saw a shadow pass beneath him and looked up to see Aang come in for a landing. The kid still had same sour look on his face like he worn since the begining of this ordeal.

"I'm sorry Aang." Katara said in an effort to comfort her friend. " I know it's hard for you right now but...we need to focus on getting out of here."

Katara went to put a hand on Aang's shoulder to reasure him. The air bender repsonded by pulling away and speaking in a dispondant voice.

"What's the difference? We won't survive with out Appa. We all know it."

"Come on Aang." Katara encouraged. "We can do this if we work Toph?"

"As far as I can feel, we're trapped in a giant bowel of sand pudding. I got nothin" The blind girl answered.

Katara tried to remain hopefull and asked Sokka if he had a solution.

"Sokka? Any Ideas how to find Ba Sing Se?"

At the moment Sokka was laying down looking upward in a daze. And being ever so helpful, the tribesman looked up and made a sugestion.

"Why don't we ask the circle birds?"

Katara gazed upward and saw four Buzzard wasps circling over head. She then looked at her friends. Aang was sulking, Toph staggerd a bit. And Sokka was sniggering as Momo clawed lazily at the buzzard wasps overhead. Meanwhile John grabbed out the maps from his rucksack and opened the one labled for the earth kingdom. It would been been easy to navigate through the desert but, There was some sort of magnetic interferance messing with the compass of his helmet's '_**heads up display'**_ ever since he had entered the desert with the motely crew he was acompanying. John looked up from his map to see Katara grab her head in annoyance.

"Ugh...We're getting out of this desert, and we're doing it together! Aang get up. Everybody hold hands. We can do this. We have to."

John folded up the map he was studying while Katara took another look at the Buzzard wasp ahead. The children formed a line holding hands with Katara in lead. John Followard Slight behind Katara to the right.

"How are you holding up?" John asked.

"I...I don't know." katara answered.

John looked over his shoulder for moment he could see that fatigue was taking a toll on the rest of the group. They needed to rest in his opinion ,because from what he could see the others were at the end of their physical Katara had the same assement.

"I think we should stop for the night."

"Is there any more water?" Toph asked.

John opened his pack and tossed one of the canteens to Katara.

"Twist the lid to your left." The spartan adivised.

When katara had opened the container. The flying lemur leapt forward at the water causing her to spill the canteen's contents. It was at this point that Sokka theatrically panicked.

"Momo no! You've killed us all!"

Katara calmly held her hand over the moist sand and bended the water back into john's canteen.

"No he hasn't"

"Oh right." Sokka said in relief. "bending."

"Besides," John answered. "I still have another canteen."

"Sokka, let me see the things you got from the library."

Sokka backed away and held his bag of scrolls defensively, before going on a verbal tirade.

"What?! I didn't steal anything! Who told you that?" Sokka then turned around and pointed an acusing finger at the lemur. "It was you! You ratted me out!"

"Sokka, I was there." Katara pointed out.

John walked over to Katara. He had a feeling that she was on to something. It was his origenal line of thought to travel by night, however that idea was stymied by lack of information about the constallation in this planets night sky. but if Sokka had a star chart in that bag then maybe with the help the maps he had they could navigate a way out of this mess.

"It doesn't matter." Aang said dejectedly "None those will tell us where Aapa is."

John snorted in disgust. The kid was more focused on Aapa rather than finding a way out of the desert. Not to mention that his bad attitude was not helping this situation either. Katara wisely ignored Aang's dispairing comment and laid out what she had in mind.

"No, but we can out which way Ba Sing Se is. We can use the stars to guide us. That way we can travel at night when it's cool and rest during the day."

Katara took a look at her friends and releized that they we're in no shape to travel at the moment.

"Just try to get some sleep." Katara said in resignation. "We'll start again in a few hours."

While the chidren rested, John sayed up an stood watch taking half hour power naps every so often. John flexed his neck and other extremities before looking at Momo packing sand over Sokka's body while he was sleeping. He also saw that Katara decided to wake every one up.

"Come on get up. We need to go."

Sokka got with an idiotic smile on his face. Toph had gotten up and smacked her lips together before speaking.

"Yesterday my mouth tasted like mud. Now it tastes like sand. I never thought I'd miss the taste of mud so much."

Katara then went to wake up Aang but he interupted her before she could touch him.

"I'm awake. I couldn't sleep."

"Well, we need to get moving if we want to get out of this sand pit."

Katara and Aaang saw saw somthing in the sky, from what John could observe Aang's mood had brightened. The spartan looked up and saw a cloud. The Airbender thought it was his sky bison. But, John knew that the object abouve them was a cloud, not a sky bison.

"It's just a cloud." Katara said sadly for moment before excitedly relizing what she could do with that cloud. "Wait! A cloud! Here, fly up and bend the water from that clous into my pouch."

Aang gave Katara an angry look before taking take water skin from her hands and flying up to gather the water from the cloud. After Aang made two passes hand landed and handed the waterskin back to Katara. The water bend looked inside the pouch only to be disapointed.

''Wow...there's hardly any in there.''

At that point Aang began lashing out again.

"I'm sorry, okay! It's a desert cloud; I did all I could! What's anyone else doing?!" Aang pointed his staff at Katara accusingly. "What are you doing?!"

Before Katara overcame her shock, John was already walking towards Aang o with obvious anger in his posture. He grabbed Aang by the collar of his shirt and started shouting into his face.

"I could ask you the same question! You ran off and left everyone hanging.! You're being so selfish and Iresponsible right now, tha yout can't be trusted to dig a latreen; let alone handle the responsibilites of being the Avatar!"

John let go of Aang's shirt and and shook his head leaving Aang in a state of shock at what John just told him.

"Come on we need to keep moving in this direction."

The group continued walking through silently the desert untill Toph triped and fell on her face. Aang and Katara looked at toph while Sokka and the lemur stare blankly at the night sky. Toph sat up and rubbed her foot.

"Ow! Crud! I am sick of not feeling where I'm going!" The earth bender pointed to object of her irratation. ''And what idiot burrined a boat in the middle of the desert?"

"A boat?" Katara asked.

"Beleive me," Toph replied "I kicked it hard enough to feel plenty of vibrations.

Katara ran over to inspect the obeject the blind girl had tripped. John knealed over the object and started digging around it. Sure enough it was revealed to be made of wood. The Spartan contined digging through the sand untill he felt hand tap his shoulder. He looked up to see Katara pointing behind him towards Aang who was sugestively holding up his staff. John put two and two together. He nodded in acknowlegement and backed away to alow Aang to do his thing. The gust of wind blew the sand away revealing that Toph's suspicions were right on. The mystery object was indeed a boat.

"It's one of the gliders the sand benders use!" Katara exclaimed "And look! It's got some kind of compass on it! I bet it can point us out of here! Aang you can bend a breeze so we can sail it. We're going to make it!"

"It Sounds like we have a plan. Well done everyone." John aplauded.

The spartan waited to be last while everyone else got on board the boat. He was about to get on him self when he noticed someone was missing. The soldier looked behind his back to see Sokka gigling like and idiot and burying Momo in the sand.

"I'll get him." John spoke iratibally.

John dragged both the lemur and the tribesman behind him. Unsurpirsingly Sokka was still laughing like an idiot. When Sokka on board the sand glider John came in behind him. The spartan noticed that Katara was looking at the star chart and inspecting the compass with a confused expression.

"Is something wrong?" John asked.

"The needle on this compass doesn't seem to be pointing north accordind to my charts."

Sokka's commmentary wasn't exactly helpfull. He was simply stating the obvious.

"Take it easy little lady. I'm sure the sand folks who built this baby know how to get around here."

"That's what the compass is pointing to! That giant rock! It must be the magnetic center of the desert!"

"A rock?!" Toph joined in excitedly. "Yes, let's go!"

"Maybe we can find some water there!"

John noticed a vindictive tone in Aangs voice that found a little worrying.

"Maybe we can find some sand benders."

By the time the asorted group came to the giant rock formation, it was dawn. Toph's enthusiam for the place was obvious.

"Ahhh finally! Solid ground!"

Toph fell flat on her back and proceded to make a rock angel. After The blind girl had finished indulging herself. The group decided to investigate the cave system atop of the mesa.

"Chief," Cortana warned "I'm getting a lot of movement in these caves."

"It might be the sand benders." John answered.

"Are you sure about that?" The AI challenged.

Sokka breathed deeply as his senses began to clear from the effect of the cactus juice.

"I think my head is starting to clear out the cactus juice. And look!

The tribesman dabbed his hand into some yellow gelletonous goo stuck to the cave wall. Which he promptly tasted and offered to Momo. The spartan tilted his head suspiciously. He couldn't help but think that Sokka was never in his right mind. It seemed that the yellow substance was not honey by the way Sokka started spitting the stuff out.

"Tastes like rotton penguin meat."

John didn't blame Katara for being a little irate at this moment. If anything it seemed that these kind of situations were a common occurance as made evident by their conversation.

"You've been hallucinating on cactus juice all day and then you just lick something you find stuck on the wall of a cave?!" Katara scolded.

"I have a natural curiousity."

John took a closer look at the cave wall and checked the motion tracker on the bottom left of his helmets HUD. Cortana was right there was something else here. he had noticed that cave wall were a bit too smooth to have occured naturally and had initially asummed that the sand benders had carved these tunnels out themselves. But that theory was now proven wrong when John started to hear a faint buzzing sound echoing from deep withen the cave system. It seemed that toph had noticed this as well.

"I don't think this is a normal was carved by something."

"Yeah..." Aang spoke "look at the shape."

"There's something buzzing in here. Somrthing that's coming for us!"

John pulled out the smg from his right thigh and gave an order that no one hesitated to follow.

"Every one fall back! Get back back to the boat!"

While the kids were running out of the cave, John walked slowly backward with his weapon trained forward. As soon as the first buzzard wasp showed up, he opened fire. The giant insect fell dead as the tiny flechete rounds perforated it's face. The creature had friends who weren't far behind and promptly shared their comapanion's fate as John continued to fire his weapon. John hugged his back to the wall; only stoping when he had to reload his weapon as the buzzard wasps kept coming foreward to be butchered by the Spartan's supressive fire. John paused a moment to reload untill he saw another one of the giant insects come staight at him. The Master Chief holsted his weapon and grabbed the creature in mid air. The captive buzzard wasp tried to make use of its stinger, but it was utterly ineffective agaisnt plates of hardened plates of titanium ceramic alloy with ablative coating, designed to withstand shots from directed energy weapons. John grabbed the buzzard wasp's head and ripped it apart form the rest of the body. It flailed about for a short moment before finally dying. Just as he exited cave mouth John grabbed a grenade a threw inside to make certain that he wasn't followed. John reloaded the sub machine gun before switching to his battle rifle as the grenade exploded five seconds after his exit. Afterward John looked upward to that the sky was full of the giant insects that he had just killed moments ago. The spartan sighed before rushing off to join his companions. He was starting to hate this planet more and more as his tenure on it continued.

John saw Sokka wildy swing at empty space. The tribesman was apparently still under the effects of the cactus juice. Another buzzard wasp came forward to impede the soldier's progress and received shot in the face from John's battle rifle for it's trouble. Another group of the creatures tried to dive bomb him, but were shot down in a succesion of triple burst. John took a moment to observe the ammo counter just below his rifles scope. The glowing blue numbers said 24. John contenuied to edge his towards the avatar and his companions, However he was forced to stop every so often as more of the giant bugs got in his way. After several long moments constantly being attacked by buzzard wasps that sought to stop him at every turn john was finally close enough to he the children's voices. One of them belonged to Katara.

"We have to get out of here! I'm completely out water to bend!"

After Katara had finshed speaking a buzzard wasp swooped down and snatched Momo from the ground. John heard Aang scream "Momo!" and chase after the offending insect. John was about to take of the problem but with Aang chasing after his other pet, the spartan was unable to get a clear shot which caused him to swear under his breath. Without any further delays John rushed down to where Katara and the others were. Another Buzzard wasp appeared in front of Toph, however with Katara's help she was able to deal with the creature.

"Yeah you got it" Sokka exclaimed "She got it right?"

"Yes now let's move."

It was that moment John was able to get close to them he jumped off the ledge and landed behind katara and rest of the group.

"Keep moving!" The Soldier ordred "I'm right behind you."

Katara looked over Toph's shoulders acting as her freinds eyes.

"On your left"

Toph reacted imediately sending a large rock into the buzzard wasp who took a direct hit to the chest and screached as it plumeted to the ground. The master chief looked up to see hundreds more the creatures still hovering about in an angry frenzy. Moments later a series of dust tornadoes poped clearing the air of the giant insects. When John and the others reached the bottom a group of sand benders were waiting for them. Aang landed in front of the sandbenders apparently ready for a fight. The leader of the sandbenders stepped forward and made an acusation.

"What are you doing in our land with a sandebender sailer? From the looks of it,you stole it from the Hami tribe."

"We found the sailer abbandoned in the desert." Katara explained. "We're traveling with the avatar" Katara gestured to Aang causing the leader's eyes to widen in realization. "Our bison was stolen and we have to get to Ba Sing Se."

A young man to the leader's right walked forward and adressed Katara in an agressive tone that made John suspicious.

"You dare acuse our people of theft while you ride a stolen sand sailer?!"

"Quiet Ghasuin, No acussed our people of anything." The leader reprimanded. "If what they say is true, we must give them hospitiality."

"Sorry father." Ghasuin apologized.

Aparently Toph and John shared the same suspicions about Ghasuin.

"I recognize the son's voice." Toph spoke. "He's the one that stole Aapa."

"Are you sure?" John and Katara asked.

"I never forget a voice." The earth bender confirmed.

Not supprisinlgy for Aang, Toph's conclusions set him off. The air flutered around him as he charged forward and brandished his staff threateningly at Ghasuin.

"You stole Aapa! Where is he? What did you do to him"

The avatar's anger caused Ghasuin to cower away from him.

"They're lying! They're theives!"

With an angry frown and a growl of frustration, Aang smacked his staff at the ground sending out a razor sharp blade of air that obliterated one to of the sand sailers in the background.

"Where is my bison?" Aang said angrilly. "Tell me where he is now!"

To emphasive his point Aang destroyed another one of the sand sailers in the same way he had done previously.

The leader looked at his son in aprehention.

"what did you do?"

"I-it wasn't me!" the young man stammered

"You said to muzzle him!" Toph Accused.

Aang's anger continued to build.

"You muzzled Appa?"

By now Ghasuin was frieghtened enough to sing like a canary.

"I traded him to some merchents. He's probably in Ba Sing Se by now! They were going to sell him there. Please! We'll escort you out of the 'll help however we can!"

The wind that had been building up around Aang began to swirl as his anger began to reach it's limit. By now John releized that the situation had gotten out of hand if Aang did not calm down, someone was going to get hurt. Sokka voice seemed to emphasive how dangerous things had become.

"Just get out of here. Run!"

The wind around the avatar began to condense into a swirling sphere. But now everyone else but Katara and John had run off to safety. It was one thing to hear about the avatar state but another to see it first hand.

"Aang!" John spoke "You need to calm down. This isn't acomplishing anything!"

Unfortunately Aang was not listening to what the Spartan had to say as the Wind sphere slowy began to make him leviatate above the ground. Katara grabbed her friend by the sleeve. The Avatar's outraged expression met a look of sad sympathy on the waterbenders face. Eventulally the wind began to disapate and The began to calm as his anger was replaced woth grief. John took a deep breath of relief. He wasn't unsympathedic to how Aang was feeling. However he felt that the Avatar went about solving the situation in the wrong way. Not of that mattered anymore, because the ordeal was over and for now things were quiet. For a rare moment in time John did not know what to think.

(* * * * * * *)

Author's notes: as you can see in this chapter John had a conflict of intrest with Aang. There will be more of such moments but hopefully they will be able to come to an understanding.


	5. Passage

The night was quiet, save for the sounds were a crackling fire and the noise of crickets in the background. After being escorted out of the Si Wong desert, the group had set up camp by a small pond. John sat on a tree stump and took his helmet off and looked at his face with aid of the helmets reflective visor. The Spartan face showed invisible signs of aging before his time. Chronologically he was in his mid forties. Constant time on the battle field had caused John to see things from an objective manner rather than a personal one. For some it seemed that he was with out emotion, but the truth was John had simply gotten good at hiding his feelings. John narrowed his gray blue eyes and scowled when he noticed the stubble growing along his chin and jaw line. He was the kind of person who preferred to have short hair and be clean shaven. It was at that point that the soldier realized that he should've packed a razor and some shaving cream. John quickly put his helmet back on when he head a rustling noise. The super soldier grabbed the battle rifle leaning against his right leg and in a smooth singular motion, sprung up and scanned the area around him for the source of the noise. Katara gasped and took a step back in response to John's actions. The Spartan slowly set the battle rifle back down at the side of tree stump and sat back down facing the water bender.

"I'm sorry," Katara spoke "I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine." John answered.

"I couldn't sleep." The girl admitted.

John looked at Katara quizzically; his social skills weren't the best but, he knew when people had something to say and he knew how to listen.

"I know Aang was a little was an immature but, he's really not bad person."

"He could've handled the situation better." John pointed out. "But you're also right it was a difficult situation."

"To honest I'm also worried about you."

John looked at Katara with confusion for a moment before speaking.

"It's because I'm stranger and you don't know my intentions."

"There is that but, you're also rather quiet. And sometimes it seems like you've been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Are you alright?"

"I'm good." John said evenly.

"I should also thank you for helping us. I'm not sure we would've made it with out you." Katara said gratefully.

"Think nothing of it. I was only doing what was expected. Besides I think you and your friends are more capable than you give yourselves credit for."

"Maybe you're right." Katara acquiesced. "It's just that ever since my mom died I was the responsible one. You would think that after all this time it would get easier."

"It's never easy. Being responsible often means that you have to make difficult choices." John pointed out. "Despite what happened in the desert; you acted with admirable ability. You took charge of the situation and kept every one together."

"I'm not so sure." Katara confessed. "I felt so helpless."

John stood up from the tree stump and walked towards Katara before kneeling down to where his helmet was eye level with her. He patted her shoulder and replied to her

"You're never helpless."

"You must think I'm being stupid."

"No, you're not." The Spartan assured. "However, you are being hard yourself."

Katara was quiet and simply nodded.

"Get some sleep." John advised.

While Katara walked off Cortana started a conversation with John Within his helmet.

"Well Chief It has certainly been an interesting experience."

"We'll manage. We always do." John answered.

"So you haven't considered the odds of...Hold on, I'm getting a signal."

"What signal?"

Cortana relayed the signal through john's helmet.

"This is the UNSC Hecate to 'Forward Unto Dawn...do you read?"

(* * * * * * *)

Leona came running into the ships bridge. Apparently the comms officer was able to reach them. The reason they were unable to make contact the 'Forward unto Dawn's' crew was because if the magnetic interference they were traveling through earlier. Leona took a moment to catch her breath. She had run at full speed up from the ships small hanger all the way to the bridge upon hearing news that they were able to make contact. What she heard from the ensign's console nearly caused her eyes to bulge out from her head.

"This is Unsc AI Cortana of the '**Forward unto Dawn**' we read you 'Hecate"

For a long moment the lieutenant was speechless. She was expecting that this would've been a burial detail. Hearing this implied otherwise.

"Hecatedo you read?"

It took a long moment for Leona to formulate a response to the A. I's reply.

"Forward Unto Dawn this is Hecate Report your status...Over?"

"Other then a rough landing; were good." Cortana answered over comms channel.

"And the Master Chief." Leona inquired.

"Alive and kicking. Although personally I think he's too stubborn to die."

"Alright..." The Hell jumper paused. "Stay where you are we'll make physical contact with you soon."

With that Leona made her way to hanger. She didn't know what to think. The Hecate's slip-space drive was damaged beyond repair. So even if the prowler could return to the stars they would unable to return to UNSC territory within their life time. For Leona; one thing was for certain, she going to find the Forward Unto Dawn's survivors and she going to get everyone out of here. And when this ordeal was over the drinks would be on her.

Rachel Stormcrow was a young woman of Native American descent. To be more specific she was a member of the Cheyenne. She remembered and respected the old ways but she was not beholden to them. When she heard news from her lieutenant that she wanted everyone ready to go ASAP she was ready. Rachael was a punctual woman; she always did things in a timely manner. It may have been a product of her cultural heritage, or perhaps it a result of the training she received as an ODST. Whatever the case Rachael was some one who was patient and decisive. She was always alert of her surroundings and quite capable of thinking on her feet. She had to be since as Scout and Marksman she Rachel was often the eyes and ears of Delta 3. And while she wasn't showing it she was feeling rather giddy. Unlike some of the more jealous and prejudicial ODST, Rachel actually respected the SPARTANS. Many ODST's referred to them as 'armored freaks' of nature. Rachel just shook her head; sometimes she wondered if humanity would ever evolve past prejudice. Presently Rachel was seated on a green plastic shipping crate. The Helljumper Inspected the DMR (designated marksmen rifle) Closely. She had spent time taking the weapon apart and cleaning out the barrel and making sure that all of the components were in place, And the scope was properly zeroed in. Rachel nodded quietly. The fourteen round weapon remained as accurate as ever. Rachael looked over her shoulder to see Leona come up from behind.

"You ready go?" Leona asked.

Rachel slapped a fresh magazine into the receiver located at the bottom of the rifle butt and chambered a fresh round.

"Always."

"Good because I am going to need you to scout you make contact notify us. I will give you further instructions when you reach us."

"Yes sir, I understand."

"Good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

While Rachel headed out Leona looked at the ceiling silently wishing that the pelican had not been damaged by the ships crash. They didn't having any warthogs of other vehicles ready available so that left them to hoof it for 12 kilometers in order rendezvous with the Master Chief. Leona took a breath through her nose and wondered how she was going to pull this off. Even after retrieving the master chief and getting the ship repaired it would be moot point because of the irreparable state of the 'Hecate's' slip-space drive. She knew that the '**Forward Unto Dawn**' had one, but that was assuming that it wasn't in the same sorry state. Leona sighed and shook her heard.

**_What a pain in the ass._**

Leona looked to her left to see the rest of her team coming in to the hanger and as always Carl and Diego were arguing with each other. To be fair it was Diego who did most of the talking. In all honesty Leona felt that Diego talked a little too much for his own good. Carl Adler was German and was by the sound of his speech well educated and he spoke perfect if slightly accented English. Who he was the team's heavy weapons specialist and explosives expert. And oddly enough he enjoyed his line of work. Thankfully it wasn't in an obsessive way. Carl was more of the type pf person took a craftsman's pride in his work. And where Carl was professional, Diego was at times a pain in the ass. Diego was the youngest amongst them. Leona guessed that was just over twenty. His attempts to hit on women where comical on some occasions while on others they were just embarrassing. The kid had promise but he really needed to grow up. The lieutenant resisted the urge to laugh as Carl and Silas both slapped the back of Diego's head. Leona smiled and shook her head; that kid really needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut. Silas was carrying a shotgun that had a rather lewd message on it that said **_'Free Blow Jobs' _**he also had an suppressed smg as his secondary weapon. On the chest plate of Silas's combat amour was a grim message. '**_If you can read this, then one of us is already dead'._** Carl and Diego were armed with Ma5c assault rifles.

"Okay people," Leona announced "I am afraid that were going to have to hoof it to the Chief's way point marker."

"I was afraid you'd say that." Diego sighed.

"Complaining won't change problem" The lieutenant riposted. "So you might as deal with it."

Diego glared at the ceiling of the ships small hanger and then at the floor.

"This is going suck. Somehow I just know it."

Carl shook his head.

"With that attitude I'm surprised that you made it past basic training."

Rachael jogged through the forest, following the way point indicated on her helmets HUD. It felt good to run again. For Rachael, physical activity often had cathartic effect on her. It was something that helped that her to clear her mind. A twelve kilometer jog gave her time to think. Rachael estimated that she would be at to there current location within a couple of hours. She knew that with Leona's tough as nails attitude that the rest would not be far behind.

(* * * * * *)

John stood watch while the children were playing by the lake. He indulged this undisciplined behavior because he was waiting for Lieutenant Stark to make contact with him. He was assuming that perhaps he would meet up with the lieutenant and that would be the end of it. Although for some reason it didn't feel right running off like this. It felt like he was committing an act of betrayal. From one point of view it seemed like he was throwing these kids to the wolves. John looked over shoulder as Katara exclaimed "Water bending bomb! Yeah!'' resulting splash doused Sokka and Toph. Which was something Sokka was quick to complain about.

"Sure, five thousand year-old maps from the spirit library. Just splash some water on'em"

"Sorry." Katara Apologized as she used bending to remove the water from the ancient map.

"So did you figure out what route we're going to take?" Aang asked.

"Okay we just got out of the desert, so we must be around here." Sokka answered." And we need to get to Ba Sing Se which is here. It looks like the only passage connecting the north to the south is this sliver of land called The Serpent's Pass."

"You sure that's the best way to go?" Toph inquired.

"Its the only way. I mean it's not like we have Aapa to fly us there."

Sokka statement earned him a harsh whisper by his sister.

"Shush up about Aapa. Can't you at least try to be sensitive?"

Katara's rebuke caught John's attention. Sokka was not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to social interaction. The Master Chief looked at the group closely. From what he could observe the situation it was likely to get bad fast. Usually If this was a military operation John would've had Aang sent away for a psychiatric evaluation. However that option was not available so he would have to keep a close eye on the Avatar for the time being.

"Katara it's okay." Aang said aloud. "I know I was upset about losing Aapa before, but I just want to focus on getting to Ba Sing Se and telling the Earth King about the Solar eclipse.

"Oh...well okay." Katara stammered. "I'm glad you're doing better."

"Some how I don't feel convinced with that statement." Cortana said privately to her companion.

"We'll wait and see." The Master Chief answered.

"Then to Ba Sing Se we go." Sokka proclaimed. "No more distractions."

John noticed three dots on the motion tracker on his helmet's HUD. At first He thought it was the Lieutenant who had contacted him earlier. But what he saw instead was a collection of refuges. One middle aged man and two women. One of them looked like she was pregnant.

"Hello there, fellow refugees." The man greeted.

"So, you guys are headed to Ba Sing Se too?" Aang asked.

"Sure are." The man answered. "We're trying to there before my wife Ying has her baby."

"Great!" The water bender exclaimed. "We can travel through the Serpents Pass together."

The three newcomers looked up in shock.

"The Serpents Pass?" Ying spoke. "Only the truly desperate take that deadly route!"

"Deadly route." Toph dead panned as she punched the tribesman's arm. "Great pick Sokka."

"Well we are desperate." Sokka explained.

You should come with us to Full Moon take refugees across the lake. It's the fastest way to Ba Sing Se.

"And it's hidden so the Fire Nation can't find it." Ying added.

"Hmm...Peaceful ferry ride or deadly pass." Katara pondered Sarcastically.

John gave the conversation little attention. He had other concerns. Presently he was expecting the lieutenant and her squad to arrive at any moment. After what seemed to be an eternity of waiting John was finally able to make visual contact with Lieutenant Stark and her team. The Lieutenant herself was caring a battle rifle in her hands while another was carrying a DMR. the one carrying the 'Designated Marksmen Rifle had three black feathers hanging from the strands of string they were tied onto her left shoulder plate. The rest of group turned to see Leona and her Squad walk up to join them after Toph had pointed out that they had company by simply stating that, "We have Visitors." While The Gaang had speaking with the refugees John had been conversing with the Lieutenant over a secure channel. He updated her on the situation and had informed the lieutenant on the situation. Upon Leona's arrival John's posture became rigid like a stake in the ground. He addressed his now current commanding officer with a crisp salute and began speaking with her in English.

"Lieutenant."

"At ease Master Chief."

The Spartan nodded and stood in an 'at ease' stance. The lieutenant walked over offered her hand. John responded by grabbing it gently and completed the ritual known as a handshake.

"It's good to see you." Leona spoke

"Likewise." The noncom answered.

"What's going on?" Sokka asked.

"I don't know." Toph answered.

"What are they saying?"

" I Don't Know." Toph retorted irately.

The truth was that no one on the planet would've understood what John and Leona were talking about since English was not a known language to them. The conversation between the lieutenant was rather plain. They simply went into more detail over the course of an hour about their current situation. The Hecate's slip-space drive was nonfunctional as a result of their crash landing. Another problem was that the ship took damage in various places so even with slip-space drive from the 'Forward Unto Dawn'. They would still have to make repairs. And unfortunately the Pelican parked inside the 'Hecate' was damaged as well. And while the Lieutenant had been informed that the repairs were making good progress and that the Pelican should available shortly; Leona couldn't help but think that they would be stuck here for a while.

(* * * * * * *)

"I can't believe how many people's lives have been uprooted by the Fire Nation."

That is what Katara said. Leona however had seen this numerous times. Too many times to be more specific. Fleeing colonists huddled up into crowded freighting vessels or any ship that stayed long enough to carry them. The sad part was that The Spartan and the accompanying ODST's were used to seeing this. The entire place was a tent city. And every where you looked you saw destitute people. All them fleeing; trying to stay one step ahead of the war. Leona could feel a singular emotion permeating the atmosphere. It was Fear. These people were afraid. And in desperation the had fled here hoping to be within the safety of Ba Sing Se's Walls. Leona knew better; in war no place was truly safe. Leona looked and saw a mother feeding her infant child while it was crying. Leona shook her head this place was so damned unpleasant. The Lieutenant continued to walk about and observe the scene around her.

John was quietly observing the scene around him. He had gotten the occasional slack jawed stare but otherwise their was nothing important to note. He noticed the same cabbage merchant that he had run into earlier protesting with an old woman at a ticket booth. Unfortunately she was not a very accommodating person.

"I told you already...No vegetables on the ferry! One cabbage slug could destroy the entire ecosystem of Ba Sing Se! Security!"

Moments later a platypus bear destroyed the cabbage kart leaving the merchant to lament his loss before being carried away by security.

"Ahh...My cabbages."

The ticket lady was apathetic to the cabbage merchant's plight as she called for the next person in line.

"Next!"

Aang then walked up to the ticket booth.

"Um, four tickets for the ferry to Ba Sing Se please.

"Passports?" The ticket lady demanded.

"Uh...No one told us we had to have passports."

"Don't you know who he is?" Sokka exclaimed. "He's the avatar!"

The ticket lady did not seem impressed as her response soon made evident.

"Ah I see fifty avatars a day and, by the way, not a very impressive costume. Besides no animals allowed. Do I need to call security?"

The Spartan remained quiet for a moment. The ironic familiarity about what he was seeing had distracted him. Although the truth was that John was simply doing what he always did when he was off duty? He remained silent and watched his surroundings. He really had nothing to do, And at this point he was wondering what he was doing here. But then again that question could be applied to the time he had spent on this planet. He looked to his right to see that the Lieutenant and her squad we're also doing the same as he was. John looked to his left once more and couldn't help but smirk beneath his helmet at the scene of Toph making a more convincing argument then Aang and Sokka ever could in fact, he could have sworn the ticket lady was kissing up to her.

"Apparently the name Bei Fong carries allot of weight." Cortana observed.

John simply shrugged at this statement. It really wouldn't matter in his opinion. After the kids went on to the ferry he would head back to the UNSC Hecate And after the pelican was repaired they would cross the ocean and return to the Forward Unto Dawn and it's Slip space drive to make the Hecate able to return to Earth after causing the ships main reactor to overload and explode. Thus ensuring that Fire Nation would never get it's hands on the technology contained with in it. And while this line of thought was all well and good; fate seemed to have other things in mind. The trouble was announced with the distraught tone of Ying's voice.

"Avatar Aang, You have to help us! Someone took all of our belongings; our passports, our tickets, everything's gone!"

And while Aang had tried to help them as he could the old woman at the ticket booth was unsympathetic.

"No passports, no tickets!

"But she's pregnant and all her stuff was stolen!" Aang pleaded. "You have to make an exception!"

"No exceptions." The ticket lady retorted. "If I just gave tickets willy-nilly to anyone, there would be no more order! You know what that means, no more civilization!"

"What if we gave them our tickets?'' The avatar suggested.

"No!"

"But..."

"Next!"

Leona walked up next to the Master Chief and summed up her pinioning of the situation.

"Some things never change."

(* * * * * * *)

John was presently wondering since when the UNSC had become an escort service. The Lieutenant had decided to provide them humanitarian aid by offering to escort them down the pass. They had a new member join the motley crew. She was a girl named Suki. Who was apparently a member of a group known as the Kioshi warrior's. Although in the eyes of the Spartan and accompanying ODST's she looked more like a Geisha than a soldier. John also noticed that the Tribesman Sokka had a thing for her. The Master Chief didn't pay much attention to such things. the group stopped for a moment when they came across an H-framed arch way with a message carved into it. The message carved into the support beam was not very uplifting. Carved into the support beam were the words 'Abandon Hope'. This line reminded Leona of the book known as Dante's Inferno. Leona walked over and unsheathed a knife from her hip and stared scathing out the message carved into the support beam. It was at that point that when Katara read the words aloud that the woman Ying nearly broke down.

"How can we abandon hope? It's all we have!"

Leona walked to the Master Chief and made a request.

"Master Chief, I need your Combat Knife."

John complied and gave his knife to the lieutenant handle first. Leona then walked up to the archway and stabbed the blade into the support beam and roughly carved out the message with a look of disgust on her face.

"The person who wrote this was a coward. They gave up. I don't know about the rest of you but, I am not going to just stand here sulk about how bad things are."

Leona's statement wasn't the most uplifting but it drove her point home. Bemoaning you're own fate never solved anything. You either succeeded or died trying.

As the group of refugees and escorting soldiers continued moving down the pass; Suki felt the need to point something out that perhaps he should have mentioned earlier. In fact the next series of events would have made it rather apparent that she should have spoken about it earlier.

"The Fire Nation controls the western lake. Rumor has it they're working on something on the other side of it and don't want anyone to find out what it is."

John shared a look with the lieutenant. In the Spartans mind words like that were prophetic. He also wondered if the Earth Kingdom had actually done any reconnaissance of the area. Talk of the Fire Nation having a secret project would by his experience and reckoning warranted a look and if possible a preemptive strike to make sure that this project never reached fruition. John knew that this was only speculative thinking. It was possible that Earth kingdom had indeed made many attempts to find out what their enemy was up to. And it was also likely that for their technological limitation the Fire Nations Military was rather competent. John had glanced to his right to see what he knew to be a Fire Nation naval vessel. He had seen enough of them in the Fire Nation capitol to be familiar with the general design of their vessels. At the back of his mind the Master Chief was crossing his fingers hopping that the crew of the passing ship would not notice them. Leona had noticed the ship as well and was about to advise that every one get out of sight for the time being. She was well aware that none them had the range or firepower to engage that ship on the horizon regardless of how primitive it was. The lieutenant was about to advise that everyone get done and remain out sight when Murphy's law of 'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong' took precedence in this situation. The cliff wall had a part of rock give way. And unfortunately a man named Tahn was standing the said rock that had so conveniently decided to fall loose and splash into the water. Thankfully Toph was able to catch Tahn with the timely use earth bending before he fell into oblivion.

Tahn conveniently able to announce, "I'm okay."

That was irrelevant since the ship noticed them and sent forth a fire ball that seemed eerily similar to a covenant plasma. And on cue John and the accompanying Hell jumpers started hugging the ground.

"They've spotted us! Lets go, let's go!" Sokka said

"Well this is interesting." Cortana announced dryly "Some one is trying to kill us again."

John grunted in irritation. "Really? I haven't noticed."

"I'm sure we came down there and had nice chat with these people we could convince them that this all a big mistake."

"Diplomacy is not my strong suit."

"It would nice." the feminine AI jibbed. "And since when did plausibility ever stop you?"

John was beginning to wonder if all artificial intelligences were a little screw loose when another fireball hit the side of cliff wall above them causing a rock slide. It was thanks to Toph thinking on her toes that Sokka and Suki were not hurt along with any one else. Of course instead of thanking Toph for the timely save from being crushed to death he spoke to Suki in a manner that seemed to strongly imply he was distracted in an intimate way.

"Suki, are you okay? You have to be more careful! Come on!"

Toph feeling unappreciated mimicked Sokka.

"Thanks for saving my life Toph." She said sarcastically "Hey no problem Sokka."

At this time John was witnessing these events and was wondering if he was having the world's strangest dream. The Spartan got up and moved with the rest of the grow and secretly wondered if the insanity would ever end. The master chief had been in a lot of interesting situation but this one was getting unique in the sense that it was severely trying his patience. The motley crew of soldiers and civilians eventually managed to evade the Fire Nation warship that had so kindly decided to open fire on them. The sun was now setting and everyone had decided to set up camp for the day. John would prefer to keep going but understood the necessity. One of the people he was accompanying was pregnant and that meant she could only go so far. John may have spent most of his life in the military but that did not make him ignorant about such things.

From what John was able to tell it seemed that Ying was in the latter stages of her pregnancy. It was going to take some time for them to get to Ba Sing Se and Ying could go into labor at any time. Ever since the fiasco in the library John had been feeling eager to leave this planet far behind; then again John knew that his life had been decidedly interesting for as long he could remember. The Spartan sighed and looked down as mentally berated himself. He was better than this.

On the next day everything seemed uneventful. And things seemed to be going well until the group reached a divide in the water. Katara was able to fix this problem easily enough by doing a small scale replication of a biblical feat known as dividing the red sea. And with the Avatars help they she a bubble of air for them to travel through. It all went smothely until Momo, another one the Avatar's pets decided to dive in after a fish. It was all going well until the flying lemur came face to face with a sea serpent. A very angry sea serpent. The frightened Lemur was quick to swim away with his new friend in hot pursuit. When the sea monster came into view Katara said what everyone at that moment had been thinking.

"What is that thing?!"

The Spartan and accompanying ODST's Grabbed their weapons as an instinctual reflex. John lowered his battle rifle when he realized it wasn't going to make much of a difference. Bullets didn't perform as well under water and in this environment the Sea serpent had the advantage. He knew that they needed to get out of the water quickly. The sea serpent made that choice for them. it broke through water causing the air bubble to collapse. If it hadn't been for Top's quick reaction in using earth bending to lift the group up to the surface; it was quite likely that many of them would have drowned. When Suki explained that she wasn't all that familiar with the Unagi (as these sea serpents were called.) Sokka decided that he would offer up Momo as a trade for safe passage.

"Oh great and powerful sea serpent, please accept this humble and tasty offering. Thank You."

"Sokka!" Katara scolded.

Leona saw this and spoke aloud in mandarin Chinese.

'Is he really that stupid?"

To Leona's surprise Katara answered.

"I' don't bother trying to figure that out anymore."

Leona looked at the sky and said something in Japanese.

"I live in interesting times."

Aang got the sea serpents attention with a blast of air.

"I'll distract it. Katara, get everyone across!"

When Aang unfurled his glider went off to keep the sea serpent distracted John was about to advise otherwise but, at this point he knew Aang would probably not listen to him anyway. John was of the opinion that he hated this planet even more now. Katara had made an Ice bridge for the others to come across. However there was another complication. For some odd reason Toph had stayed behind.

"Toph, Come on, it's just ice!"

Toph took a tentative step on to the ice and quickly withdrew it. John huffed in frustration and decided to take action. Without telling anyone or thinking about what he was doing, John ran at full speed along the ice bridge. Normally this was foolhardy that often at times ice was not most secure surface to be running but the spider web cracks that appeared on the frozen surface as the armored heels of the super soldier's feet made impact on the ice, provided traction. When the Spartan had reached the blind girl he didn't bother saying anything or trying to explain what he was trying to do. He simply grabbed Toph by the waist and hoisted her up to his shoulder. Toph was about to protest this when she noticed something strange. As John ran back across the ice bridge his heart was beating so fast that was almost impossible to keep track. It was like drum that never stopped and despite how fast he was breathing he showed no signs of fatigue.

**_What are you?_**

As John made his way back across the ice bridge he looked up to see the sea serpent slamming its body onto the ice bridge beneath him. And with the ice already cracking beneath his feet it was obvious what was going to happen. So, the super soldier simply decided to jump into the water to avoid getting crushed. At this point John heard Toph mention something that made him snort out of his nose. Dealing with children was not his strong suit.

"Um…Tin Man?"

"Yes," John said with wavering patience.

"I can't swim."

"That won't be a problem."

While the master chief swam back with Toph in hand; Aang and Katara created a whirlpool that had the attacking sea serpent trapped in the center the watery vortex began to spin faster and faster until the sea serpent was thrown against the face of the cliff. John eventually swam ashore and allowed Toph to come ashore first before doing the same for himself. The Noncom shook his limbs casually as water began dripping off of his body. It had been a bit of a Charlie Foxtrot for the few months of his stay here but John took note of the fact that he had made it out unscathed. The master chief nodded in acknowledgment of this fact and nodded. Things would work out like they always did. The rest of the day would've been uneventful if not for one final act of providence. Ying groaned in pain and clutched her hands around her stomach.

"What's wrong?" Sokka asked.

Ying's answer made the situation blatantly obvious.

"The baby's coming!"

"What? Now? Can't you hold in or something?"

Leona snorted and spoke something in japanese.

"What an Idiot."

"Sokka, calm down." Katara chided. "I helped Gran-Gran deliver lots of babies back home."

Sokka however did not calm down.

"This isn't the same as delivering an arctic seal! This is a real... human... thing!"

Katara remained calm and started giving instructions.

"It's called a baby and I helped her deliver plenty of those, too. Aang, get some rags. Sokka, water. Toph, I need you to make an earth tent, a big , come with me."

While the baby was being delivered John leaned against the cliff face and watched the sun begin to set. Some would call this a miracle. John however did not put much thought into such things. He was a man of practicality. The Spartan turned his head to the right, towards the stone tent when she heard Katara speak out in excitement.

"It's a girl!"

John walked to the entrance of the stone tent.

"It's good to witness something positive for a change." Leona said aloud.

John simply nodded in agreement. The Spartan spared a quick glance and then walked away until he heard the baby girl's parent's speaking.

"What should we name her?" The husband asked.

"I want our daughters name to be unique.I want it to mean something."

It was at that moment that Aang spoke up.

"I've been going through a really hard time lately. But you've made me... hopeful again."

"I know what I want to name our baby now. Hope." Ying decided.

"That's a perfect name. Hope." The new father answered.

John shifted his weight away from the entrance. And set out on his own. John stared at the horizon. For a while he had always thought that hope had always been wishfull thinking. But now he wondered if it had a different meaning. If it less to deal with wishing things to change and more in line with the determination to make those wishes reality. Perhaps wasn't wasn't as foolish he had perceived it to be. One thing was for certain. They still needed to reach Ba Sing Se. And come what may, he would succeed no matter what obstacles apeared in his way. He had beaten the odds before and he would do it again.

"So what's on your mind Chief?" Cortana asked.

"I don't know what were getting into, but were gonna make this work." John answered.

"We always do." Cortana replied with a perky chime.


	6. Thus I Refute Thee!

The journey across the infamous serpents pass was not a pleasant one. For John it seemed as if he was encountering one setback after another. First it was the crash landing of the _**Forward unto Dawn**_'s wreckage. Second was being stranded on a primitive world in the midst of a world war. The Spartan restrained himself from scowling as he recalled being ill equipped at baby-sitting four children. He did not feel ashamed for admitting this. John had been thrust into a situation that had tested his patience to its very limit.

Presently the Master Chief along with the others in the merry band of soldiers, refugees, and children were now on the last steps of their journey to Ba Sing Se, the great walled city they had heard so much about. John along with Leona and the other ODST's felt skeptical about this city. Everything they had heard made it seem like the streets of Ba Sing Se were paved with gold. Being in war often had a way of making people cynical about the word safety.

When they had arrived at the base the city's massive outer wall, Aang had finally returned from his latest aerial excursion; the ensuing conversation got his attention. Katara looked surprised and had asked into why her friend had returned so soon.

"Aang what are you doing here? I thought were looking for Aapa."

"I was, but something stopped me something big."

"How big exactly?" Cortana asked

With earth bending Aang and Toph improvised an elevator to bring everyone to the top of the wall.

"What's so big that Appa has to wait?" Sokka asked.

"That." Aang answered.

It was at that moment that the giant mechanized behemoth come into view. It was shaped like a large segmented metallic cylinder with a large watchtower with red glass windows standing erect and high above the rest of the massive machine's super structure. At the sight of this machine and the escorting army of steam tanks, Ying cried aloud in despair as she huddled up with her family.

"We made to Ba Sing Se and we're still not safe. No one is!"

Leona was about to say something, until the Voice of an Earth Kingdom Soldier Addressed the group.

"What are you people doing here? Civilians aren't allowed on the wall!

Surprisingly Aang spoke in an authoritative manner that seemed extremely out of character for him.

"I'm the Avatar take me to whoever is in charge."

To the surprise of the assorted UNSC military personnel, the guard actually complied with this request. Had this been a Military Installation in UNSC territory the kid would have been strong armed and told to turn back simply on the principle that he was a minor.

Eventually they were lead to a section of the wall that had a roof overhead that was supported by tall arches.

Sitting behind the desk was a man who judging by his appearance and demeanor was the man in charge. And in spite of the situation the general seemed unusually relaxed and by the assessment of John and the squad of Hell Jumpers a little to confident for his own good.

"It is an honor to welcome you to the Outer Wall, young Avatar, but your help is not needed." The General spoke.

"Not needed?" The avatar asked dumbfounded.

"Not needed." The General said calmly "I have the situation under control. I assure you that the Fire Nation can not penetrate this wall. Many have tried to break through it, but none have succeeded."

Toph however decided to point out the opposite.

"What about the dragon of the west? He got in."

General Sung seemed slightly taken back by the blind girl's point, which he was forced to concede was valid.

"Well…uh, technically yes, but he was quickly expunged." The general stated confidently. "Nevertheless, that is why the city is named Ba Sing Se. It's "the impenetrable city". They don't call it Na Sing Se." The general laughed then grew serious. That means "Penetrable city"."

For now, Leona decided that Master Chief and her squad would wait and see. If the Earth Kingdom Army could handle it, then good for them; if not then Delta-3 and the accompanying Spartan would have to show them how it was done.

Meanwhile Toph had decided to cut straight to the point.

"Yeah thanks for the tour, but we still got the drill problem."

"Not for long." The General answered. "To stop it, I've sent a special platoon of Earth Benders called the Terra team."

"That's a good group name." Sokka said. "Very catchy."

The Spartan and accompanying ODST's nearly slapped their helmets.

"50 credits say the Terra Team gets their asses handed to them." Leona said prophetically.

The Terra Team's attempt to stop the drill from breaching the walls of Ba Sing Se started when flipped over a Fire Nation steam tank.

"That's kind off impressive." Rachel remarked.

"Don't get your hopes up." Silas replied.

As the hell jumpers leaned over the wall to watch, the Terra Team continued there assault by lodging large stone spikes into the siege engine's metallic hide in order to stop the machine dead in its tracks. However the metal skin of the drill separated into large chitin like sections and crushed the offending stone wedges into ruble. Moments later the Terra Team was barely able to bring up an earthen wall to act as a barrier to block the flurry of knives sent hurtling their way. Unfortunately the girl throwing knives at them was only a distraction. What they did not notice was another girl with a braided pony tail had slid off the drill's outer shell. The entire attack was a pincer movement. While the attacking earth benders were distracted by the knives being thrown at them by one girl, the other had quickly moved in from behind and with what seemed like little effort neutralized the Terra Team with a series of what looked to be nerve strikes.

Upon seeing this General Sung went into a panic a flailed his arms.

"We're doomed!"

Sokka then decided to slap some sense into the panic stricken General.

"Get a hold of your self, man!"

"You're right. I'm sorry." The general said sheepishly as he rubbed his cheek.

"Maybe you'd like the Avatar's help, now?" Toph asked dryly.

The general turned to Aang and swallowed his pride.

"Yes, please."

Aang and the rest of friends took another look at the massive machine beneath them.

"The question is, how are we going to stop that thing."

Ominously the rest of the group turned to Sokka. Looking at him expectantly.

"Why are you all looking at me?" the tribesman asked.

"You're the idea guy." Aang pointed out.

"So I'm the only one who can ever come up with a plan?" Sokka complained. "That's a lot of pressure."

"Also the complaining guy." Katara jeered.

"That part I don't mind." Sokka answered.

(* * * * * * *)

Upon witnessing the Terra Team's failed assault on the drill. Silas just simply shook his head. It wasn't surprising conceding the way they went about it . The whole attempt was doomed to failure from the start. The two girls that had taken the earth benders down had merely confirmed a forgone conclusion.

"See," Silas pointed out. "What did I tell ya?"

"Are you always so negative?" Rachel reposted

"I'm simply being realistic. What ever these guys just tried obviously didn't work. And judging by what we can here I highly doubt they might have anything their arsenal to penetrate the outer hull of that thing."

"A MAC gun could do it." Carl pointed out "But we don't have one available at this time. Prowlers don't have that in their weapons compliment and The Forward unto Dawn is missing its own magnetic accelerator cannon."

"Which mean's our only option would be 'Boarding Action'." Leona concluded.

"Yes," Carl answered. "If we could get and put the some explosives in the right spot we could effectively neutralize the drill."

"Did you happen to bring some explosives with you?" Silas asked.

"No," Carl answered. "You had us loaded out for reconnaissance. Not demolitions work."

"Shit." The lieutenant muttered. "It looks like we're back to square one then."

"Permission to speak freely ma'am." The master chief spoke.

"By all means Master Chief if have any ideas on solving our current situation, please share it with us."

"The plan he mentioned earlier might still be viable."

"How so?" Leona asked.

The Spartan took the ruck sack off from his shoulders and unzipped it. He then fished out a long rectangular brick that looked like white clay. It measured at least ten inches long by three inches wide.

"Is that what I think it is?" the lieutenant asked.

"C-12 plastic explosive." The Spartan confirmed.

"Okay, Carl it looks like your original plan of thought is still viable. We blow a hole in the side of the thing. Then we blow the rest of it from the inside."

"Breaching the hull might not be necessary." Rachel suggested.

"Explain to me "Birdie" Leona said as she used Rachel's call sign. "What do you have in mind?"

Rachel handed a pair of electronic binoculars to her commander.

"Take a look." The scout suggested. There's a hole on the side of the machine."

"Like an entrance hatch."

"They would have to get in some how right?" Rachel answered with a smirk. "The only problem will be reaching it. But I think our tall friend already has that handled."

Meanwhile it seemed the Gaang was starting to go along the same line of thought. It began when Katara was attempting to give medical aid to the injured Terra Team members. She tried use water bending to heal one of them. But something was off there was no evidence of any physical injury but she could tell through the water she was bending that something was not right.

"What's wrong with him?" the general asked. "He doesn't look injured."

"His Chi is blocked." Katara answered. "Who did this to you?"

The wounded Earth Kingdom soldier strained to move for a moment before answering.

"Two girls ambushed us. One of them hit me with a bunch of quick jabs and suddenly I couldn't earth bend anymore and I could barely move. Then she cart wheeled away."

Katara's eye's widened with realization.

"Ty Lee. She doesn't look dangerous, but she knows the human body and its weak points. It's like she takes you down from the inside."

It was at that point that Sokka a moment of inspiration, and started making noises that emulated a hog monkey.

"Yes?" Katara asked evenly.

"What you just said!" Sokka answered. "That's how we're going to take down the drill! The same way Ty Lee took down all those big earth benders!"

"By hitting its pressure points!" Toph exclaimed.

The avatar looked over the wall with a determined look.

"We'll take it down from the inside." Aang said with finality.

The Gaang was crouched at one of the abandoned trenches at the base of the wall unaware the fact that the group of group of soldier's who were accompanying them had thought out the exact same plan that they were hoping to execute. Toph started the clandestine assault by gesturing to the drill.

"Once I whip up some cover, you're not going to be able to see. So stay close to me."

With a hard stomp The Blind Bandit sent a mass of debris flying upward creating a sizable cloud of dust.

"Run!" Toph shouted.

And on cue the rest of the group rushed into the cloud of dust Toph had just created. Johns approach was less dramatic .He simply rappelled down from the wall of Ba Sing Se using a bungie cord that had anchored to the top. However he most certainly noticed the large cloud of dust that had kicked up. The Spartan eyes widened slightly behind the visor of his helmet.

_**They wouldn't…..No they would….which means I'll have to drag them out fire.**_

The Spartan felt quite certain that he was not the only one who noticed.

(* * * * * * *)

Within the confines of the drill's command center; the same girl with the braided pony till saw the cloud of dust. Ty lee, as she was called observed the dust cloud through a periscope with a statement that made how ditsy she was evident.

"Hey look at that dust cloud. It's so poofy." The acrobat to a moment to look away from the periscope. "Poof."

War minister Qin; the man in charge of the drill seemed oblivious to threat it could pose as he addressed Princess Azula who had been sitting in the command chair. For the moment she was simply here to observe.

"Don't worry, Princess. I'm sure it's nothing."

Azula gave the war minister a quizzical look that stated she felt it necessary to disagree. And she been down at source of the dust cloud her suspicions would have been proven correct.

At the source of the dust cloud Toph had created a hole in the ground and encourage her friends to jump in with her.

"Everyone into the hole!"

And sure enough the rest of the group followed.

(* * * * * * *)

John finally had the opportunity to examine the drill up close. The Spartan shook his head. Even by observing from afar he knew that throwing rocks at the thing would have accomplished nothing. The outer hull of this siege engine had to at least be four to six inches thick. The only real way this machine was going to put out of commission was from the inside.

John grabbed the brick of plastic explosives from satchel pack behind his hips .He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to attach the C-12 to the power plant of this machine. And once he hit the switch the detonator would cause the explosive compound to go off and damage the drills internal components irreparably. Hopefully he could this all before the Avatar and his friends got them selves into more trouble then they could handle.

"You have a plan then?" Cortana commented.

"We will have to destroy this thing from the inside. We don't have the firepower to do otherwise."

Within the confines of the neural interface of John's armor Cortana was already well aware of the plan her companion had in mind; she also knew him all to well, but she liked doing this sort of thing out of amusement.

"A bit simplistic…" Cortana replied, "Although it does give me an impression of De JA Vu."

"I was planning to plant some explosives in the engines."

"Oh I see…."Cortana reminisced in amusement. " You're going with a classic."

"I thought you'd like it." The Spartan quipped in response.

"Now all we need to do is get inside."

John looked up to see the entrance hatch.

"I'm already on it."

John walked backward a fair distance to get a running start. The Spartan sprinted forward at a speed was normally not humanly possible. His feet made an audible thump each time one of them made impact with the ground beneath as the augmented muscles in his calves and thighs propelled him forward. And with the help of his Armor's EVA thrusters located just behind his shoulders John was able to gain the necessary height needed in order reach the bar just the port hole that he was aiming to enter.

"I'm guessing that was the easy part." Cortana quipped, as her armored companion hoisted himself upward into the hole and slid down a ladder leading into the inside. The motion tracker on the left corner displayed on the visor showed two contacts to his left. The Spartan knew that the children had not entered the drill as of yet. John quickly shifted into a collection of pipes and valves as he awaited the duo to pass him. At first the Spartan simply intended to stay hidden and the two contacts pass him by it then occurred to him that one of them might be in possession of information that would prove invaluable to his current mission.

The Spartan waited a moment as the individuals he had begun to pass him by. The pair looked like engineers wearing some sort of leather face mask with goggles. And if that were the case then his luck once again had come into play. And while Dr Halsey had once said he was endowed with incredible good fortune, John however had different philosophy the that best kind of luck of the luck you made for yourself.

John slow moves out from the maze of piping and machinery he was hiding in. He minimized the noise he would be made by taking slow methodical steps in a slightly squat posture behind the two engineers. John's first target was the one straggling behind to his companion's right side. John quickly disposed of him with a sleeper. The attack was unseen and unheard, due to how well practiced John was.

The second man was unaware of what happened and started speaking.

"Anyway as I was saying…."

By the time he had turned away it was already too late. Within moments John had the man pinned against a wall with an arm pressed against his throat to prevent the man form calling out for help.

"Wh- who are… you?" The engineer asked.

John ignored the question.

"You have something I want."

"What…?"

"Information," The Spartan clarified. "You're going to tell me about this machine and how it works."

John looked down momentarily to see collection of papers in a leather satchel at the man's waist.

"Nerve mind." John said laconically.

With light shove John sent the man's head pounding against metal wall making a hollow thud. John then dragged the limp forms of two a two unconscious engineers into the collection of pipes he had been hiding in. After he was certain that no one would be finding the bodies in a while The Spartan started rummaging through their belongings. Eventually the noncom found what he was looking for, a blueprint of the siege engine. From what he could tell the drill had two primary layers. An inner hull and an outer hull.

"It looks like the support struts connecting the inner and outer hull together are a structural weakness." The AI pointed out. "If we blow them apart the whole thing will collapse."

"Good." The Spartan answered. "Let's get to it."

(* * * * * * *)

Sokka had eventually lead Aang and his sister Katara to the support struts. The red painted metal that connected the layers of the drill together was much thicker than originally anticipated.

"Wow, it looks a lot thicker in person than it does in the plans. We're going to have to work pretty hard to cut through that."

"What's this "we" stuff?" Katara snipped. "Aang and I are going to have to do all the work."

Sokka answered in a way that made it seem like they were in a Saturday mourning cartoon.

"Look, I'm the plan guy. You two are the cut stuff up with water bending guys. Together, we're Team Avatar!"

Aang and Katara exchanged an awkward look but decided it was best not to say anything. Meanwhile John looked up at the sound of a metallic ping ringing through the cavernous expanse of the drill.

"It looks like we found them." Cortana understated.

"Looks that way." John shrugged.

John raced off to find the source of the noise as it continued to echo though out the drill's interior.

Aang and Katara had doubled over from exhaustion. They felt like they had been cutting into the metal beam all day all they had accomplished was to cut half way through it.

"Come on team." Sokka encouraged. "Don't quit now. We're…"

Katara growled at her brother and threatened hit him with the water whip she had been using earlier.

"I mean…You're almost there." Sokka placated.

John continued to work his way upward though a giant square stair case that winded upward. He paused when he close enough to hear voices.

"At this rate, we won't do enough damage before the drill reaches the wall." Katara said panting.

"I don't know many more of those I have in me." Aang Conceded

A creaking noise from the drill made Sokka hopeful.

"Do you hear that? We took it down! We better get out of here fast!"

That statement however proved immature as the voice of War Minister Qin was heard throughout the Siege Engine.

"Congratulations, crew. The drill has made contact with the wall of Ba Sing Se. Start the countdown to victory!"

"Come on Spartan! Move it, we're out of time." Cortana said urgently within John's helmet.

The cheers of Fire Nation soldiers could be heard through out the drill's interior. The trio who been spending so much time trying to cut through the support strut shared a collective look of dismay.

"This is bad, really bad." Katara spoke.

"We're putting everything we've got into busting these braces, but it's taking too long!" Sokka complained.

It was then that the Avatar had a moment of inspiration.

"Maybe we don't need to cut all the way through. Toph has been teaching me that you shouldn't give one hundred percent of your energy into any one strike. Sokka, take a fighting stance. You've got to be quick and accurate. Hit a series of points and break your opponent's stance. When he's reeling back, you deliver the final blow. His own weight becomes his downfall, literally."

"So we just need to weaken the braces, instead of cutting all the way through." Katara concluded

"Then I'll go to the top of this thing and deliver the final blow." Aang added.

"And boom! It all comes crashing down!" Sokka said enthusiastically.

"Everyone inside that wall ;the whole world is counting on us." Aang stated.

"The whole world minus the Fire Nation that is." Sokka jibbed.

Aang and Katara didn't say anything and simply stared at another. Moments latter, Aang and the two water tribe siblings looked to their left in surprise at the sound of the Master Chiefs voice.

"That certainly explains what you're all doing here."

Sokka's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"How did get in drill?" Tribesman "How long were you standing here ?!"

The soldier answered both questions in one statement.

"Long enough, I'm a man many talents."

"B-but what are you doing here?"

"Are you two sure he's the '**Idea Guy**'?" Cortana chimed sarcastically.

"Who said that?" Sokka challenged in a disgruntled tone.

"Cortana, it might be best if you not say anything."

"Fine," The AI said in frustrated disappointment. "It's not my fault he's loopy."

"I heard that!"

"For the record Katara," Cortana said in a teasing statement. "You have my condolences. You're not only girl who's stuck taking care of a guy with a cave man's level of intellect."

"Um…Thanks I guess…" Katara answered in confusion.

John was quick to interject before things got more off track.

"You have the right Idea. However I may have an alternative that might quicken the pace."

"What's that?" Aang asked.

" I brought some explosives with me."

John then produced the block of C-12 he had been carrying earlier.

"How is a block of clay going maker this any faster?" the tribesman inquired.

"It's more powerful than you might think." John stated simply as started cutting the clay like substance with his combat knife and began attaching wires and small antennas to them."

The Spartan then split the pieces the four of them, and instructed the three children to attach the plastic explosives on to the archways of support struts through out the drill's length. After John had finished his half of the drill and saw that the children were done as well he waved them over.

"Excellent everything is in place. Now all we have to do get out and detonate the explosives."

"John we've got company!" Cortana warned.

John looked up to see a large blue fire ball coming straight at them.

"Hit the deck!" the Master Chief ordered.

The Spartan threw himself down and quickly got back up in a kneeling posture with his battle rifle leveled upward at the arching support struts searching the source of the problem. It didn't taking like for John to find the source of the attack. Standing atop of the brace was a trio of three teen age girls.

John recognized Azula on sight but the other two he had not seen before. One of them wore a braided ponytail and had a definite pension for pink. Another was slightly taller. She wore loose clothing, and had a slimmer build then the other girls, her hair was unique in the sense that it looked like a pair of meat balls with ribbons dangling down from them. She also seemed to be rather gloomy or dour.

The green giant's aura was different. The color surrounding him was a bright fire engine red. The acrobat could not help but feel like he was surrounded by blast furnaces with the clang of hammers on metal. The image that came to her mind was that of metal being constantly melted down shaped and tempered, again and again in an endless process of refinement. This man was both extremely driven and disciplined.

"Whoa" Aang exclaimed, after narrowly dodging another blue fireball.

"Wow, Azula you were right! It is the Avatar…" The girl in pink said with a flirtatious smile aimed at Sokka. "… And friends."

Sokka was at the moment more concerned with being a ladies man rather then bugging at as he smiled back and waved back saying "Hey,".

As Katara went to drag her brother away in annoyance, John turned to address her.

"Take your friends, and get out of here. I'll hold them while you escape."

"By yourself?"

"Sure, it shouldn't too hard. I've seen worse." The Spartan reassured to Katara.

For the water bender her new acquaintance seemed to radiate something she hadn't noticed before. A sense of endless determination and fortitude seemed to exude from ever fiber of his being. And some reason Katara could not help but be reassured by his mere presence.

"Be careful."

John nodded in acknowledgement.

"Always."

After the Spartan was certain his charges were leaving, John brought the battle rifle back to his shoulder fired of three triple burst before Azula and her friends could even begin to make chase. Each shot was purposely a near miss.

"Not so fast." The noncom addressed. "You'll have to go through me first".

"Are you some type guard dog?" Azula asked in a snarky tone.

"Maybe." The Spartan said concisely.

"Doesn't matter," Azula said confidently "You're just one man."

"The last person who said something like that lived to regret it."

"Really…" The princess inquired. "I think you're stalling."

"You wanna find out?"

Azula crossed arms in a moment of deep thought. She knew well enough that the man in front of her was executing a delaying action. The Princess was thinking over a solution when suddenly she saw welcome company. Numerous guards in skull faced helmets surrounded the Spartan from multiple levels and angles. The sound gunshots had obviously grabbed their attention.

"Are you in need of assistance Princess?" the guard captain asked.

"Deal with him." Azula stated simply.

(* * * * * * *)

"Surrender." The guard captain commanded.

"That's not going to happen." The Master Chief riposted.

"Very well," the Captain answered. "Kill him."

The fight started with a flurry of fire balls sent at the Spartan from the left side. The Master Chief quickly shifted his body to the side at the last moments and fired a series of triple burst. The weapon let out a stuttering bark each time John pulled the trigger followed by a bell like tinkle as shell casings hit the metallic floor beneath. And in quick succession the Fire Nation Soldiers who tried to kill him were put down before any one could react. From that point John acted like a machine programmed for violence. Processing one target after another and using the labyrinthine web ob pipes and machine to his advantage in order to keep the attacking soldiers from both drawing a bead on him and creating moments where they lost sight of him, creating opportunities for the Spartan to catch them of guard with devastating hit and run tactics.

As the carnage continued to unfold John had removed himself from his trance like state long enough to note the fact that he had burned his way through a lot of ammo. In fact as he slapped a new magazine into the battle rifle's hungry receiver he became aware the he was down one last extra clip before eventually running dry on ammo.

The Spartan paused a moment to look around for additional hostiles. All around him John the corpses accompanied by puddles of blood from the dead fire benders who had been attacking him earlier. Eventually the sound of muffled coughs caught John's attention. The Spartan holstered the battle rifle and pulled out the combat knife from his shoulder sheath. John continued to follow the source of the noise until he found a survivor spasming in convulsions from the force in which he was coughing up blood. John kneeled over the wounded man and pinned him down just before slitting his throat. Afterward the Master Chief stood up and shook his head.

Being forced to take human life never something he was comfortable with. When he had fought the aliens of the Covenant or the walking corpses of those unfortunate enough to be infected by the flood, John no qualms about killing them. However after fighting for the future of mankind, taking human life didn't feel right. Being forced into situations that required him to kill his fellow human beings had left him with a sense of emotional revulsion powerful enough to almost make him gag were it not for his high level self control.

After the moment of self reflection John reigned in his feelings and focused on the task at hand. The fight was a senseless distraction. Hopefully the Avatar and his friends would have gotten of the situation unscathed.

The Spartan rushed his way back to the entrance hole on the side of the drill he had infiltrated into. John stopped a moment when heard voices again just as he came to an intersection of pipes and machinery. John looked up to a sign saying **'Slurry Pipeline' **with an arrow where he heard the voices. The Spartan was quick sprint at full speed in the direction that the sign had guided him. As he drew closer the sound became clearer and the speech became discernible.

The first voice seemed to have a dour feminine tone to it.

"Ugh, disgusting."

Her companion seemed to be a ditsy teenage girl.

"C'mon! You heard you heard Azula. We have to follow them!"

The dour one disagreed.

"She can shoot all the lightning she wants at me. I am not going in that wall sludge juice."

John came to the slurry pipe just in time to see the girl in pink jump into the slurry pipe while here companion shut the hatch with a shudder. Moments later Mai noticed that some one large had followed her to the pipeline. A closer looked revealed that It was the giant had been accompanying the Avatar and his friends. In rare moment of being startled and not knowing the Spartan full capabilities she threw a trio of knives at him. In a gesture of annoyance John batted the first two projectiles away from his face with his left hand, and caught the third in mid air with his right hand. Mai was quick to realize that actions had amounted to little more than a fruitless gesture.

Ï trust this is the part you kill or beat me to the point I'm horribly maimed." The knife thrower said dryly."

The Spartan was quiet for moment while he studied the throwing knife in his hand. Then with out warning threw the knife back at Mai with enough fore that the tip dug itself into the metal wall. It had happened so fast that when Mai looked to see the knife dug into the wall that for a brief moment her eyes widened noting that the knife had missed her face be little more than a quarter inch to the left.

"Have I made my point?" John rasped.

"Sure," The dour girl said dryly as she gestured her thumb to the entrance hatch to the slurry pipe. "Be my guest."

John opened the wheel to the left and opened the hatch. John spared a quick glance at Mai to discern her intentions which she made bluntly clear as she shrugged at him.

"I don't really care what do at this point."

For a brief moment John had considered jumping into the muddy liquid and taking the express way out like the knife throwers companion had done earlier. But then a sudden reversal in the muddy water's current and Cortana's advice said convinced him not to.

"I know you're usually eager to get your hands dirty but I would strongly suggest against that course of action at this time."

"You're right," John understated "The pipe's clogged."

That of course left John with taking the long way back out. As ran out back to the way he came in, the Spartan could almost swear he heard Mai say something along the lines of, "well that was interesting." in a dry voice.

(* * * * * * *)

Meanwhile at the top of the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, Leona was getting restless.

_**What's taking him so long?**_

The drill was well on its way through the wall as it greedily chewed through rock and mortar. And all the while Earth kingdom soldiers at the wall were throwing rocks at the drill in the hope that their efforts would stop it. Moments later Leona saw the bald kid, Aang makes his up to the top of the drill with that strange bat winged monkey he had as a pet.

The avatar halted for a moment before deciding his next course of action.

"This looks like a good spot Momo" the Avatar said decidedly before looking up to see the giant boulders coming toward him from above.

Aang yelled at the general to have his men cease throwing boulders at the drill.

"General Sung, tell your soldiers to stop shooting rocks down here!"

However General Sung panicked and said the opposite.

"Soldiers, whatever you do, don't stop shooting rocks down there!"

Aang quickly took a step back as another rock fell on top of the drill inches away from where he was just standing. He then extracted some liquid from Katara's water skin and began slicing an '**X**' into the drill's armored hull.

Leona looked at the scene in disgust

"So since throwing rocks at the thing is obviously not working…"Leona said caustically, "We're just going to throw more rocks at it and hope that they scratch the paint job out of spite."

"Look on the bright side." Diego said. "At least it's not us down there."

"Shut up Diego." The lieutenant replied as she ran towards the general to get him to see reason.

"It's turned out to be quite a show. Some one should record this" Diego spoke. Upon which he had his fellow Hell Jumpers look at him and shake their heads.

When the lieutenant arrived at General Sung's position, she yelled in his face.

"What the hell are you doing? There's a kid down there!"

However General Sung said something that tempted the lieutenant to punch him across the jaw.

"Don't worry ma'am, we have everything under control."

"The hell you do."

Meanwhile Aang was interrupted from cutting into the drill when Momo shrieked, warning him of the danger of a Fire Blast that he was able to deflect just in time.

"Momo, get out of here!" The avatar ordered as he assumed a fighting and prepared to face his attacker who was none other then Azula.

Aang put up an admirable defense against Azula. With the aid of Air bending he was able to deflect Azula's first attack. Azula sent another blast of fire which was deterred by the water whips Aang had managed to conjure up. Eventually Azula simply sent out a more powerful blast of blue fire that vaporized the water Aang was using. The boulders provided additional options to him as the fight went on. However Azula just simply dodged Aang's counter attack and sent him flying back against the wall knocking him unconscious.

(* * * * * * *)

At the very moment John had jumped out of the Drill's open entrance hatch and landed; he grabbed a small metallic cylinder. The then flipped the lid open with his thumb and pressed a small red button. Within the hollow confines of the drill's interior, one could hear a series of three electronic chirps followed by a long drawn out beep.

And on cue the explosives that John and the Gaang had planted earlier went off. Outside you could hear a series of dull thumps that left a series of outward bulging dents on the top surface of the drill.

John took a moment took inspect his handy work. Moments later the results became self evident as the drill's outer hull began to bulge and leak at the seams in certain places. Soon afterward the Master Chief heard the lieutenant's voice over the radio inside his helmet.

"Master Chief, do you read?"

"Affirmative Lieutenant, go ahead."

"We have a situation at the wall. I need here ASAP."

"Understood." John answered as he ran to the wall. "I am on my way."

(* * * * * * *)

It was glorious. Azula had the avatar right where she wanted him. He was helpless and unconscious. Pinned against the soon to be once mighty wall of Ba Sing Se. The princess enveloped her hand in blue fire and prepared to leave her mark onto the Avatar's face proclaiming to the world that it was she who had bested him. Unfortunately Azula's moment of triumph was cut short by the vice like grip of the seven-foot tall Spartan's large mailed hand. The princess looked behind her shoulder to see the Master Chief's imposing stature directly behind her. She had just enough time the see the reflective golden mirror of a green helmet's visor moments before she was tossed aside like a rag doll. John turned around to face Azula and stared at her with utter contempt.

"Let's see you push around someone who can actually fight."

It seemed as if every eye on the Spartan and the princess atop of the drill. The best way to describe scene was that two alpha predators were circling each other, eager to rip open the others throat. The Green Tiger and Blue Dragon had paused for a moment and looked at each other in a staring contest. Azula knew that there was something familiar about the armored giant in front of her. He was strange because with others she could always feel the hint of fear from her opponents no matter how well it was hidden. She had relished that moment. But with this man all she could feel was his intent to destroy her utterly and toss her ashes into the wind. The Master Chief had become the first man who seemed completely unfazed by the princess. John remained silent he didn't feel the need to speak. Oratory and Bravado we're useless in these situations.

"You're a brave man." Azula taunted. "It's a shame you won't live long enough to inspire anyone."

"Don't flatter yourself little girl. You're not as good as you think are." John said in a raspy retort.

"YOU." The princess said in recognition. The voice belonged to the cloaked man who had forced her to the ground and held a knife to her face.

"What about me?"

"You should show more respect to your betters. Now you'll pay the price!"

Azula sent out a long torrent of blue flame that caused the Spartans shadowy outline to disappear. The Princess would have smiled in triumph if not for the fact that her giant green armored opponent had simply done a reverse shoulder roll from his back. The Princess then watched in a slight sense of admiration as the Spartan went into a handstand and curled his body into a position that brought him springing back to his feet. What was impressive about the display was not only did he survive the blast by throwing himself prone onto his back, but also the way he had gotten back to his feet so quickly and fluently. This man was nimble and fast enough to give Ty lee a run for her money. The efficiency of his movements caused Azula to correct that thought. He was better than Ty lee.

"If you want my respect, you have to earn it."

"You obliviously don't know the way of things here peasant." the princess said coldly.

"I don't care. From what I can see you're nothing but bully."

"You should choose your next words very carefully." Azula warned threateningly.

"Get in line. Better people have tried."

Azula barely time to react when she saw John charge at her. She threw a blue fireball that seemed to splash over harmlessly over an invisible barrier. The Spartan shifted his body to side momentarily avoid another fireball before continuing forward. Within the space of three seconds John was up close and personal. He slapped the princess's hand aside causing the blue fire that had once enveloped it to dissipate. Before Azula could react she felt a hard blow to the center of her chest that sent her sprawling backward. When looked at where she had been hit she saw a large fist shaped indentation in the center of her armor's chest plate.

"That was pathetic." John said bluntly. "You might have talent but you're a long way from fighting at my level. Go back home to your mother; a War zone is no place for children."

John stared at Azula with curiosity for a moment as the words began to sink in to her mind. The Spartan took a cautious step back and put himself into a defensive stance. John was in no way intimidated by what he considered to be an overconfident punk ass kid, but he wasn't foolish either. He could tell by the moments of silence that something was some he had said had undone Azula's composure. Numerous emotions seemed to work their way across the princess's face before contorting into a mask over anger that seemed to have been boiling inside her for a long time. John realized that instead of talking sense into Azula's head as he had intended; what he spoken had instead ended up provoking her.

Azula quickly recovered from her prone position and began to pull out all the stops against the Spartan. However while anger may motivated her actions it did little to guide them. Even though her technique was crisp and clean the way she was fighting became sloppy. And against an experienced combatant of the Master Chief's caliber it would have been a fatal mistake had he not been restraining himself and holding back in order not to hurt her. Azula became frustrated as the fight went on everything she tried did not seem to work. It was if the green metal man she was fighting could read through and counter her every move with seemingly arrogant ease. What Azula was unaware of was that her current adversary was an extremely experienced Special Forces operative who had lead fire teams in over two hundred engagements for the course of over twenty-seven years. And despite being chronologically 41 years old he had the physique and athleticism that was better than most people half his age.

The princess jumped and did a double roundhouse, which John quickly ducked under and avoided as if she was moving in slow motion. Blue fire sprayed everywhere but unfortunately the prodigious Fire Bender's attacks had failed to hit their mark. For Azula it was maddening.

_**How could some one so large and in such a bulky suit move so quickly?**_

John was constantly moving. He was rarely in the same spot for more than a few seconds. For John it was almost like a drill to test his reflexes. Except that it was a little too easy. In his long experience he had learned how to read the movements of the body. It was difficult to explain but he had knack for discerning how both combat and non-combat situations would turn out and progress. Azula attempted a snap kick to the Spartan's side but unfortunately he was all too quick to catch her by the leg and send her falling backward on to her seat.

The princess looked up to see the green armored behemoth kneeling down in a squat position on the balls of his feet and staring at her in an expectant manner. Azula glared at him with a look of outrage. John slowly stood up and walked from side to side in a semi circle around Azula; observing her, like a predatory cat.

Once again Azula came at the Spartan with everything she had and still she met the same results. She was sent flying backward as if she weighed little more than a feather. Eventually the princess realized that she been playing into his hands all along and so far in this confrontation she was forced to make the humiliating admission that the giant man in front of had nearly every advantage. The Spartan was faster than her, stronger then her; and his mind was quite able to keep up with her own. The only advantage she had was Fire bending. And despite being held as prodigy in this said field, John seemed to simply make a mockery of the art. At was as if for some reason he some kind quality that made bending irrelevant.

Looked up just in time to see Aang free falling from the top of the wall intent on landing on the stone wedge he had carved and set on top of the '**X**' he had cut into the metal earlier. Two words went into John's mind as this happed.

_**Oh shit!**_

John grabbed Azula and jumped off the side of the drill. Azula of course demanded that he '_unhand at her once_.' But moments later a large mess of slurry and shrapnel, came flying out in every direction. John kept Azula pinned as mud and debris sailed overhead.

The Spartan grimaced as he felt a jagged piece of metal scrape against the back of his armor.

Elsewhere Mai opened a hatch at the side of the now irreparably broken siege engine and dryly surmised the situation in two words.

"We Lost."

John got up and walked away from Azula before turning his head over his shoulders and talking to the princess.

"Don't even think about. Besides, I just saved your life."

"We'll meet again." Azula said threateningly "Count on it."

"Am I supposed to be scared?" The Master Chief challenged as he turned around and walk up to the princess.

Azula glared at John's visor in defiance.

"You should be."

Before Azula could react John grabbed her by the collar and raised her body up until she was staring at him eye to eye.

"Some one should have kicked your ass a long time ago." The Spartan retorted. "One day you will learn accountability; and consequence will be your teacher."

Afterward John let go and dropped Azula on her seat. She seethed as she heard the Spartan speak derisively about her as he walked away.

"You're a stupid, spoiled, punk ass kid."

As John left Azula behind to pout and throw an eventual temper tantrum, he smiled and shook his head as he overheard Sokka discuss team names with the rest of his friends. The Spartan then uttered two words that only Cortana could hear as he followed the Gaang back to the walls of Ba Sing Se.

"Mission Accomplished."


	7. Conspiracy of Ignorance

To call the city Ba Sing Se would have been an understatement. The children and soldiers entered the city on a monorail that was propelled along with Earth bending. John and the Hell Jumpers looked at the view outside the monorail windows casually. It was not that they did not appreciate the view in which was none the less impressive but, it was not the first time any of time had been to a big city. During the entire ride John remained quiet.

He was the kind of person that most of the time remained quiet unless he felt it was relevant to say something. The Kids and Leona's squad were both involved in their own conversations. Rachael had her arms crossed as she held her DMR against her shoulder as she casually looked the city as it filled her view of the horizon. So far the Native American woman had taken the approach of a casual observer. From her perspective this planet and the people in it were little different from any other places she had been or from any other person she had encountered or met. This planet was unique in its own way of course. She had seen some animals she had never encountered before and this thing called bending was something entirely new as well. But otherwise it had familiar feel to it. Rachel looked across interior toward the front of the monorail car he to see, the lieutenant sitting in a leaned over position with her elbows placed against her knees, and her hands clasped beneath her chin while she was involved in a conversation with Silas the squads sergeant. Silas was seated across from Leona. The sergeant had the ankle of his left foot resting on his knee while he sat in a reclining position and nodded as he spoke with Leona about what their next course of action would be.

"So," Silas asked casually. "What's next?"

"Honestly Silas, I don't know." Leona answered.

Silas was quiet for a moment while he arched an eye brow and tilted his head slightly to the left.

"Seriously El Tee?"

"I'm making this up as we go along."

A moment later Leona snickered as she overheard a short exchange of words between Sokka and Toph.

"Hey don't Jinx it!" The tribesman said to his sister after remarked about her relief in reaching the city and about being grateful for coming there. "We can still be attacked by some giant exploding Fire Nation spoon. Or find out the city's been submerged in an ocean full of killer shrimp!"

Toph looked at her friend in annoyance but replied in a joking way.

"You been hitting the cactus juice again?"

"I'm just sayin', weird stuff happens to us."

"Hey lighten up," Leona teased. "You're still alive aren't you? Besides exploding spoons aren't that useful and I think it's highly unlikely that shrimp of any variety would survive long out of the water."

Toph for her part seemed to start becoming irritable.

"Back in the city, great."

Sokka seemed to disagree with Toph's sour mood about Ba Sing Se.

"What's the problem? This place is amazing!" Sokka spoke in reply to Toph's bleak statement.

"It's just a bunch of walls and rules." The blind girl said pointedly. "You wait; you'll get sick of it in a couple of days."

John didn't pay much attention to the conversations going on around him. In his mind they had gone off track more than he would have liked. So far, this had excursion become a series of one senseless distraction after another. The Spartan felt that he had run around in circles wasting time and accomplishing nothing. Had it not been for his reserved demeanor or his high levels of self-control it is likely that he would lose his temper a long time ago. It was true that this situation was starting to irritate him; however it was mostly derived from the fact that he felt as if he were unable to do anything useful or productive. John snorted through his nose to clear his mind as the monorail came to a stop. The Master Chief waited a moment to allow his emotions to simmer down, while the other passengers exited the monorail car.

When John stepped out the door he noticed that the group had traveled with, (Leona and her squad along with the Avatar and his companions) the Spartan noticed a woman standing just in front of them a small gust of wind blew her hair to the side, the woman in question was in John's opinion unremarkable save for one special detail; the smile she was wearing on her face was rather strange. The Spartan had seen people smile before, he had smiled with a toothy grin in his youth, but the smile he saw on this woman's face was so wide that it seemed that she could swallow a water melon whole.

It was at the point when the Master Chief had joined his traveling companions that he had started to get the impression that this whole thing was going to get very interesting in the Chinese sense of the word. The new fiasco would start just the woman with the strange smile introduced herself.

"Hello my name is Joo Dee!" The woman said excitedly. I have been given the great honor of the Avatar around Ba Sing Se. And you must be Sokka, Katara, and Toph. Welcome to our wonderful city shall we get started."

"So they decided to give a tour guide." Cortana inside John's helmet "that's rather nice of them."

"Something is off about that woman." John said aloud.

"Yeah," Leona agreed, "Something is definitely odd about her, I have seen perky people before, and they're very annoying. But this is different it's almost as if Judy here had recited this speech a million times."

Something about this entire situation was already getting weird. John found more evidence to support his hypothesis when Sokka growled in annoyance and walked up to Joo Dee after she had seemingly brushed off his statement about having valuable information regarding the Fire Nation army.

"Maybe you missed what I said." Sokka spoke in a flustered tone. "We need to talk to the king about the war, it important."

Unfortunately Joo Dee's reply was not helpful. In fact it would seem that Sokka was being outright ignored.

"You're in Ba Sing Se now. Everyone is safe here."

The tour guide's statement made Leona snort and mutter something in English.

"What a load of bullshit."

"Yeah," Silas answered "I hate this place already."

"This is going to suck…Hard" Diego muttered.

"It could be worse." Rachael reminded.

"Please don't say that, Birdie." The lieutenant said in exasperation, as such words often tended to be prophetic.

There were reasons why John disliked being the center of attention. And one biggest reasons, was Hero Worship. And when the female tour guide addressed him with a new moniker the Spartan rested to slap his visor and glare upward.

"You must be the Jade Warrior and his acolytes."

John wore a glowering expression behind his helmet. The city Ba Sing Se was already becoming more trouble than it was worth.

"Excuse me?" The Master Chief asked.

"Welcome to Ba Sing Se." Joo Dee Said with a toothy grin.

Leona sighed irately over a secure radio channel as she addressed the Spartan.

"Just play along for now Master Chief."

Moments later John and his traveling companions were herded into a large carriage pulled by pair massive flightless birds called ostrich horses. The primitive vehicle was comparable to a tour bus. The UNSC personal who were starting to dislike the situation more because of the annoying quality that Joo Dee voice had taken ever since they had first met. For it was like some was trying to piss in their ear and tell them it was raining. This assessment seemed to become self-evident as soon at the tour started.

"This is the lower ring." The tour guide announced.

"What's the wall for?" Katara asked.

The answer Katara recived seemed almost as if it had been rehearsed or something.

"Oh, Be Sing Se has many walls! There are the ones outside protecting us, and the ones inside, that help maintain order. This is where our newest arrivals live, as well as our craftsman and artisans, people that work with their hands. It's so quaint and lively!"

"I'm getting a bad felling about this place, Chief." Cortana spoke.

"No kidding." John answered. "How so?"

"I'm formulating a hypothesis about it." Cortana answered.

"What hypothesis?" John Inquired. "Why are you being so cryptic?"

"For now call it a hunch"

"Wonderful."

John looked out of a window and saw what one would call a slum. The Spartan nearly shook his head. The people here were doing little better than those outside the walls of the massive city. It was almost if these walls were in place to keep these people out of sight and out of mind.

"So, you're saying that this city is a police state." The Noncom

"That's what I'm starting to think." The AI

"I think that the Avatar and his friends, are going to in a complicated situation."

"Our life is always interesting." Cortana quipped. "I doubt that's going to change any time soon."

The tour continued into the middle ring of the city. The Spartan and the hell jumpers didn't show it but they were not appreciative of the tour for them it was mealy a formality. Leona and Rachael shared look of boredom and fraying patience. The soldiers had no interest in learning trivia about Ba Sing Se. And in the collective opinion of the UNSC personal accompanying the group of children Joo Dee was ranking among the most annoying people they had ever met. It difficult for John or the ODST's not slap their foreheads or tell their tour guide to 'Shut the hell up' as she opened her mouth again and continued to talk about Ba Sing Se was the best place in the world when clearly it was not.

"This is the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se, home to the financial district, shops and restaurants, and the university."

At this point it seemed likely that Sokka would soon be blowing a gasket. He leaned forward and spoke to Joo Dee.

"Yeah, we met a professor from the Ba Sing Se University. He took us to an ancient underground library where we discovered information about the war that is absolutely crucial for the Earth King to hear!"

Unfortunately, Joo Dee Seemed to ignore every other word the tribesman had said. The tour simply continued speaking as if nothing had happened.

"Isn't history fascinating? Look, here's one of the oldest towns in the Middle Ring, Town Hall!"

"Is that woman deaf? She only seems to hear every other word I say." Sokka spoke.

"It's called 'Being Handled'." Toph pointed bluntly "Get used to it."

(* * * * * * *)

When the tour was finally over, Lieutenant Stark went about getting things set up as soon everyone had into the housing that was set aside. Leona's first order was business to have the newly repaired pelican of the UNSC Hekate prepped and ready to go on her orders, for a supply run. Her intention was to convert this place into a temporary command center. The aircraft would arrive at night carrying the equipment that she had requested. It was precaution to keep the activity away from prying eyes. The sight of Dai Li agents she had seen earlier, made it clear that they would have someone looking over their collective shoulders 24/7. Presently the Children had headed out to investigate the whereabouts of their sky bison. Leona thought that the Avatar and his friends had admirable determination in this matter; however it was unlikely they were going to find this animal so easily by going around and asking questions. And while Aapa was rather large and difficult not to notice, it seemed rather unlikely that the kids would find the sky Bison on the first day. Due to the size of the city they were searching through.

She did not blame the kids for headed out. In fact Leona felt that it would productive for the children to head out and blow off some steam. From what the Master Chief had told her it seemed that those kids had been through a rather stressful ordeal. It had the added advantage of getting them out of the way, so that she could get the pelican unloaded without any distractions. However as a precaution she had the Spartan keep a discreet eye on them. God only knew how much trouble they would be getting into otherwise. Leona peered out a window and checked the horizon and noted that the sun was beginning to set. The lieutenant placed two fingers against the earpiece she was wearing and spoke into the microphone attached to it.

"Is the equipment I asked for loaded into the pelican?"

Leona waited a moment until a male voice answered her inquiry.

"Yes, El Tee. We have everything you asked for packed up and ready to go. All we need, is your go ahead."

"Copy that." Leona answered "Bring it over to my location."

"Understood, we're headed over with the care package now; ETA ninety minutes."

"Good, I'll be holding you to that Crew Chief."

"Yeah," The Crew Chief answered, "I hear ya over and out."

The pelican arrived at later in the day as the lieutenant had expected. She knew that the aircraft was going to attract attention, which way why she had made arrangements to have the aircraft drop the requested supplies and equipment from high altitude. Leona looked up expectantly as the crates slowly lowered to the ground. Leona then looked over her shoulder and addressed Silas and the rest of her squad. She wanted get this over quickly because she had felt that they had already attracted enough attention.

"Alright people let's get out there! We don't have all day!"

As the Pelican's cargo ramp lowered the ODST's ran out and started moving cargo as it slid down the ramp. In all the contents of that the Pelican was dropping included two portable weapons lockers, another crate of communications equipment, along with a holo plinth for Cortana. There were other things brought into the house as well but these items took priority over everything else. When the squad of hell jumpers had finished unloading the cargo from the drop ship, Lieutenant Stark wasted little time in having everything brought into house.

"Let's get this stuff inside now! Double time it people!"

The first order of business was to make sure that both of the weapons lockers were secured and locked up tight. It was common sense proven by Earth's history that children and firearms did not mix well. Afterward Diego and Carl went about setting up the communications equipment along with the holo plinth and other electronic equipment, which was currently being installed by Carl and Diego. Leona paced back and forth as she considered the situation. The reason she sent out the Master Chief was for something other than babysitting. Rather he was also sent out to observe the city in more detail and to confirm her suspicions.

Something about this city didn't sit right with her. She couldn't shake the feeling some one was constantly looking over her shoulder. And when her suspicions were correct it was always the same people; the distinguished Dai Li agents. The Dai Li seemed more like the Gestapo of Nazi Germany rather than an actual law enforcement agency. Ba Sing Se was a prison, not a safe haven.

(* * * * * * *)

Earlier in the day at Ba Sing Se University.

The Master Chief's current mission was to conduct overmatch without being discovered by the group of children that he was supposed to look after and sear for prying eyes. Particularly those of the Dai Li. The Term overmatch was derived from US military doctrine during the 21st century Ce. The principal being that a small group observes the surrounding terrain to provide support to friendly units with covering fire or by simply notifying friendly forces of the terrain and what the opposition from the enemy is like.

Presently the Spartan was observing the group of children from a rooftop that overlooked the street. At this moment John Saw the children conversing with what looked like a young man in front of a building known as Ba Sing Se University. And as one would expect from such an establishment, the place was busy, as made evident by the numerous students and faculty members going about their business. However this little detail was irrelevant, as the Spartan's attention was directed at Aang and his friends, along with the person they were talking to. John guessed that the man the Avatar and his friends were talking was probably a student or at the very least a teacher at the university.

The Master Chief observed the group of children through the scope of his battle rifle. He was only able to observe body language due to the facts that one he was to too far to hear what they were saying and two, the background noise of Ba Sing Se's citizens going about their business made that even more difficult. What John was able to determine for certain was that, whatever they were talking about; the subject matter was unwelcome. It was easy for The Master Chief to see because how nervous the university student seemed and how eager he was to end the conversation and go about his business. In fact the university student was so frantic, that he tripped over himself and dropped the collection of scrolls he was carrying. The frantic young man then hurriedly picked up the papers he had dropped and walked off at a brisk pace, while he was constantly looking over his shoulder with a nervous and fearful look on his face. What John didn't notice was that Joo Dee was waving with at the frantic college student the same odd trademark smile on her face.

John looked up to see that it was starting to get late in the day. John continued to follow the children while jumping from rooftop to rooftop as the carriage made its way back to the housing that was aside for them. While the Master Chief was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, he began putting recent events into perspective. The Spartan was curious as to what made the college student from the conversation he had observed earlier so nervous. This event combined with he had seen earlier from the tour of the city along with a candid discussion with Lieutenant Stark about her suspicions about Ba Sing Se, made the master chief think that something was definitely off. When John came to an alley aside from the housing that had been set aside for the Avatar and his friends, he calmly step off the ledge of the roof and landed with a dull thud that kicked up a small cloud of dust at his feet. The Noncom then pressed his back against the wall of the house behind him and slowly inched his way to the edge of the alley way. While doing this, John slowed his breathing with short shallow breaths in an attempt to further his chances to remain undiscovered. By then he could easily over hear Joo Dee's irritatingly perky and overly rehearsed voice.

"Well, I'm sorry no one has seen your bison. Why don't you go get some rest? Someone will be over with dinner, later."

John relaxed a little as he heard the Carriage drive off. He was about to make his way inside the house through the back door to report to the Lieutenant for debriefing when he overheard Sokka's voice.

"Hey come with me."

The Spartan decided to continue watching the kids for a little while and used a window ledge as a platform to give him an extra boost as he jumped up the opposing wall and climbed up the roof. From the Roof top John quietly followed the group in a hunched over position. The Spartan continued to watch as Sokka knocked on the door of a house across the street. John was eager to actually hear what was going on with perfect clarity this time so he decided to jump across the street to the roof of another house. The Spartan took several steps backward to back ledge of the roof of the house he was standing on, before going at a full sprint. Amazingly enough the Master Chief was able to make the distance across the street with ease as he landed on the opposing roof with a forward somersault, with the battle rifle he was carrying clutched tightly against his torso. John halted his momentum with the palm of his left hand. The Spartan then got up from his kneeling position and made his way closer as to over hear the conversation Sokka and the rest of the group of children were having with the man who had opened the door that the tribesman had knocked on earlier. John settled into a comfortable position, slowed his breathing, and ease dropped on the conversation.

"You're the Avatar!" The man at door answered and introduced himself. "I heard you were in town. I'm Pong. "

"Nice to meet you Pong." Wang's voice answered politely.

"So, Pong, what's goin' on with this city? Why is everyone here so scared here to talk about the war?" Sokka asked.

From the sound off Pong's voice it was obvious to John that the man was trying to avoid the subject of Sokka's question.

"War? Scared? What do you mean?"

"I can feel you shaking." Toph deadpanned in annoyance.

"Look, I'm just a minor government official." Pong said frantically. "I've waited three years to get this house. I don't want go get into trouble."

"Get in trouble with whom?" Katara asked.

Pong made a hushing sound before finally answering the water bender's question with a nervous whisper.

"Shh, listen; you can't mention the War here. And whatever you do, stay away from the Dai Li."

Back on the roof top Cortana spoke to John from inside his helmet.

"Well that certainly explains some things."

"The lieutenant's suspicions were correct." The Spartan confirmed. "We need to get back and tell her what's going on."

While The Gang stood in front of Pong's doorway staring at one another in confusion, John decided to take advantage of the distraction and make his way back to the Lieutenant and report to her what he had learned. He had done this the same way he had come previously to Pong's house by jumping across the street via roof top. While the children came to the front entrance of the prearranged housing that now served as a temporary HQ; the master chief made his way to the back of the house. Upon entering through the back door, the Spartan made his way to the holo plinth situated inside the living. The pylon he walked to was waist-high by his standards. This meant that The Master Chief would bend down to slide the data chip holding his AI companion Cortana and install her into the system.

The Spartan started the procedure by reaching up behind his head to remove the chip from the slot situated on at the back of his helmet, just above the base of his skull. John stood up and waited a few moments for Cortana to fully integrate into the system. The Process began when a luminous blue digitized orb with lines of data orbiting it levitated over the shallow mushroom-shaped top of the holo plinth. A split second later Cortana presented herself in her avatar form. This just so happen to be a semi nude holographic woman with digitized streams of data running up and down here body similar to the way that blood would circulate through the body of a human being.

As luck would have it Sokka along with the other children were walking into through the door at that very moment. As an artificial intelligence, Cortana had always been curious about human behavior. So obviously, she was amused at the Gang's collective reactions. Toph seemed oblivious to Cortana's presence, however Sokka was obviously distracted since he was gawking at Cortana's holographic form and did not realize where he was walking until he had tripped over a bundle of wires and fell flat on his face. Katara covered Aang's eyes and made it point to be looking elsewhere.

"What's with you guys?" Toph asked.

"Toph!" Katara exclaimed. "Close your eyes! You shouldn't be looking at such vulgar things!"

"Hold on, Sweetness." Toph relied in mixture of confusion and irritation. "What are talking about? In case you've forgotten I'm blind."

"It's nice being the center of attention for once." Cortana chimed teasingly.

"You're not helping the situation." The Master Chief riposted.

John sighed and braced himself for inevitable complications. He was now going to have to introduce them to the voice in his head. The problem was that John was unable to give the kids an exact explanation of whom or what Cortana was. The conversation was an odd one. In some ways it had threatened to derail into a debate about artistic interpretations of the human body vs. pornography. Not that these kids knew about what porn was but, sometimes children could surprise you. This sort of situation had never come up before; the UNSC was a military organization where everyone was expected to act their age. Or at least act as if they had some semblance of maturity. John was metaphorically stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Hey Katara, whets wrong? I can't see anything." Aang protested.

The Spartan emotions were unreadable to Aang and the water tribe siblings but, Cortana was quite certain that John was in a state of frustration. The A.I's conclusion was derived from her close relationship with the Spartan. The situation became worse when Aang peeled Katara's hands from his eyes just in time to see Cortana Place a hand on her hip, strike a pose and blow a kiss at him. Aang blushed and John tried very hard not to slap the visor of his helmet.

(* * * * * * *)

The next morning was surprisingly quiet despite what happened during the previous evening. John had been up since midnight, do to the fact that he was by habit a light sleeper. He was one those people who could be well rested with little more than three to four hours of actual sleep. While everyone else was sleeping John moved about the perimeter of the house to make sure that it had remained secure throughout the night. Afterward the Master Chief procured a set of Allen wrenches and other small tools and laid them about in neat pile as he sat on the stone floor cross-legged, and began dismantling the battle rifle he had carried during his trip here. The Spartan knew as well as any other soldier that failing to maintain your weapons could result in death because of your gun jamming in the middle of a fire fight. Which was why periodically cleaning and inspecting your weapons was so important. This was reinforced when, he remembered the words of his Drill Instructor and mentor Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez.

_**"If you take of you care of your equipment. Your equipment will take care of you. So remember to keep your weapon clean; I didn't waste all this time training all of you, just to die of incompetence! "**_

John huffed beneath his breath with as his mouth curved into a shallow smile of amusement behind the visor of his helmet. Franklin Mendez was one of few people outside of his brothers and sisters in arms in SPARTAN program that he could truly trust. It wasn't like he was paranoid around strangers, John trusted his fellow to do their duty and watch his back if need be, and it wasn't like the Avatar and his friends were bad people but with outsiders his trust was provisional. John was the type of person who took a lot of work to gain his trust.

Despite the bulk of the gauntlets John's hands moved with surprising dexterity as he expertly dismantled the frame of the battle rifle and set the screws neatly aside and grabbed a brush shaped like a cotton swab at the top along a small bottle of cleaning oil. The Noncom then carefully extracted the barrel from the firearm he was working on and inspected it for a moment. He noticed that since he had burned through so much ammunition in such a short time, that he noticed a large amount of black residue inside the barrel. The Spartan sighed he would have liked to have gotten this taken care of earlier. However John didn't waste time worrying about that. There was no time like the present. He took the cleaning brush and dipped into it the bottle of oil before beginning to scrub out the residue from inside the rifle barrel.

John continued to clean and reassemble the gun through the night. The Spartan took his time. There was no need rush. He had a rare moment of peace and quiet, which was something he learned to take advantage of when possible. The Spartan temporarily stopped cleaning the inside of the rifle barrel to inspect his handwork. Most of the gunpowder residue had taken care of. The Master Chief continued to scrub the barrel for another half an hour before being satisfied with his work. After finishing a thorough inspection and cleaning of the other part of the battle rifle he began to reassemble it. Putting the gun back together took little more than half a minute because of how familiar he was with the weapon. John then shook the battle rifle lightly to make sure that everything was in place and that nothing had come loose. Afterward the Master Chief made a final visual inspection and set the gun down.

Next John repeated the same process with the sub machine gun; which had surprisingly, in his opinion had seen little use. As such it did not need nearly as much time to clean. After fifth teen minutes of work, the Spartan finished with the sub machine gun and decided to inspect the machete and combat knife. The Master Chief liked to keep busy; it kept him from thinking about the past. Thinking about the past often brought back vivid memories. This was one of the reasons why he preferred to focus on the task at hand. Not all of his memories were bad but living in the past was a luxury that people in his profession could ill afford. Often at times he remembered past missions in complete detail. He had been to strange places, seen some scary shit, and did things so crazy that you would have to be there, if only to considering what the Master Chief just did to even be remotely possible. Although despite having done things what many would consider to be 'Bat Shit crazy'; much of his actions were in fact by the book. The crazy stuff was what one could call a calculated risk. A lot was still reckless and foolish but, he had usually made sure that his actions would not endanger anyone else. One the last things he wanted were some one to go down with him, on account of his own foolishness.

Eventually John had finished checking and repairing his equipment. He now found himself in a dilemma of having nothing to do. At one end it was vexing although on another he was also quite patient. The Spartan decided first of all he needed put everything away. And then he would simply wait till morning.

(* * * * * * *)

Katara's first order of business this morning was to check the mail. She stepped out the door with a yawn and a stretch before coming to a mail box. Katara then sorted through the letters with casual disinterest until one document in particular caught her attention and caused her to gasp in excitement. Moments Katara rushed back to the front door, eager to share, what she thought, was good news.

Katara entered the Living room to see her friends lounging around in the living room. Four of the hell jumpers were involved in a card game. The tribeswoman noticed the woman called Rachael laughing out loud as the three men playing with her, threw their cards down on the table in a mixture of disgust and defeat.

John was conversing with his A.I. companion Cortana and Lieutenant Stark over what their next course of action. The stillness of this scene was interrupted by the sound of Katara's voice.

"I got it! I know how we're going to see the Earth King!"

"How are we supposed to do that?" Toph agued before mimicking Joo Dee's voice, "One doesn't just pop in on the Earth King!"

Katara answered Toph by reading the piece of paper in her hands.

"The King is having a party tonight for his pet bear."

"You mean platypus bear?" Aang asked.

"No, it just says 'bear'."

The conversation continued when Sokka suggested that the animal in question was a 'Skunk Bear'. Toph offered her opinion that perhaps the Earth Kings pet was an 'Armadillo Bear'. Katara confirmed that none of her guesses were correct.

"Just... bear."

"This place...is weird." Toph spoke.

Moments later Katara's enthusiasm returned.

"The palace will be packed. We can sneak in with the crowd!"

Toph lay down and calmly said "Won't work."

"Why not?" Katara asked with confusion.

Toph casually explained her reasoning as she grabbed a pastry from the bowl next to her.

"Well, no offense to you simple country folk, but a real society crowd will spot you a mile away. You've got no manners!"

Since Cortana had been wired into the entire building, she was able to see and hear everything. The artificial intelligence did not say anything but she had a feeling that this plan was going to be doomed from the start. Toph was right in regards to the fact that the children would not be to just waltz in through the front entrance. However Toph due to her young age was naïve to the fact that this wasn't only a high society party but also since this was the birthday party of high standing political official their was no going to some extremely tight security present. And there was no doubt that the Dai Li would be present for this occasion. This important factor had unfortunately skipped the minds of the avatar and his friends, as Katara responded with an indignant expression.

"Excuse me? I've got no manners?! You're not exactly "lady fancy fingers!"

Toph let out a belch and continued talking as if nothing had happened and that she didn't care that Katara had felt insulted by that statement.

"I learned proper society behavior and chose to leave it." As the blind girl had said this she ironically tossed a half eaten pastry carelessly aside. "You never learned anything. And frankly, it's a little too late."

Just as she finished speaking the blind girl picked her nose and flicked snot off from her finger. Sokka didn't seem dissuaded in the least and joined in on the conversation.

"Aha, but you learned it! You could teach us!"

"Yeah, I'm mastering every element. How hard could manners be?" Aang added.

The avatar then grabbed curtain and wrapped and around his body like a robe and began speaking to his pet lemur Momo.

"Good evening, Mr. Sokka Water Tribe, Ms. Katara Water Tribe, Lord Momo of the Momo Dynasty. Your Momo-ness."

Sokka grabbed another curtain wore like a robe as well before joining in with his friend Aang.

"Avatar Aang, how do you do? Go on."

Aang bowed to Sokka. And Sokka bowed back. Eventually this became a contest as the two boys bowed back and forth trying to outdo one another. This kept going for a few seconds before Aang and Sokka's heads bumped into one another forced them both to fall backwards. At that point Toph walked forwards towards Katara while the boys were still on the floor. And continued to speak from where she had left.

"Katara might be able to pull it off, but you two would be lucky to pass as busboys!"

"But I feel so fancy!" Sokka protested with the curtains still wrapped over his body.

Moments later, the piece of snot Toph flicked away earlier unceremoniously fell from the ceiling and landed on top of the water tribesman's head. The Master Chief's A.I. Companion, Cortana had been watching this charade from the beginning; and while what had happened was humorous it was still something that raised alarm. From her stand point the children had no idea what they were getting into.

Cortana decided it was best that she inform the lieutenant about what the kids had in mind hopefully; Miss Stark would be able to talk some sense into them.

(* * * * * * *)

Leona paced the roof top in frustration. She couldn't believe that these kids were planning something so reckless. She couldn't fault the Master Chief because the man was consummate professional. The lieutenant knew that he would have strongly advised against them doing something like this. Leona shook her head in disgust and snorted through her nostrils, before turning to look at The Master Chief and her squad whom she had gathered to discuss this development.

"So let me get this straight." Leona said, addressing John. "You joined these kids on an expedition to some ancient library buried in the sands. Where it just so happens that one of them found the date to a solar eclipse that will apparently make this thing called fire bending impossible for a brief period of time."

"Yes ma'am." The Spartan answered.

"Aaah shit." Leona muttered. "That would explain why they are so eager to meet this Earth King so badly." Leona took a deep breath. "Alright speak candidly people. Tell me what you think."

"You have to give them points for guts." Karl spoke.

"I with the Lieutenant on this." Silas said. "Those kids are being stupid. I mean; do they really expect to just waltz in and talk to this 'Earth King' guy?"

Rachael, the Native American woman shrugged.

"No, it probably won't be that easy. However I doubt that's going to deter them. I also doubt that they'll listen to us about why they shouldn't be going through with this."

"I have a bad feeling about this." Diego added. "It's like someone's about to step on a landmine and we're about to be caught in the explosion."

"And you, Master Chief?" Leona asked.

"I agree." The Spartan answered.

"With whom?"

"All of them. This situation is far from ideal and those kids have no Idea what they are getting into. Best case scenario they don't even get past security."

"Worst?" The Lieutenant inquired.

"We end up having to stage a rescue op."

"Some one should tell the universe to go screw itself." Leona said aloud in Japanese.

(* * * * * * *)

Leona had finally come to the conclusion that in some way would seem morally reprehensible. The lieutenant was going to allow the children go along with their plan so that she could sort out her own suspicions and confirm without a doubt, whether or not she was simply being paranoid. Ever since she had caught sight of the Dai Li agents in Ba Sing Se Leona could help but feel uneasy about them and the way they were constantly staring at people.

It was for that reason that she had the Master Chief follow the children to the Earth Kings palace. Leona agreed with the assessments of both the Master Chief and her squad. Hopefully this crazy plan that the kids came up with wouldn't go anywhere and they would do the sensible thing. However thanks to hearing John's testimony about his brief time with the children, Leona was able to discern that these children were desperate. And she knew that desperate people often didn't make the wisest of choices.

For now, there wasn't much Leona could do. The lieutenant took some small comfort in the fact that she had the Master Chief keeping a watchful eye on the avatar and his friends. Leona had some discomfort with this decision because, she felt as if she were taking advantage of people with this course of action. In a way she was wondering why she even came to this city or why she didn't just leave once they had escorted the refugees to Ba Sing Se.

The answer lied with her conscience. After her home on the colony world be burned down from orbit like the rest of the planet, she had more protective of the people around despite the fact that she never showed it; as it was hidden beneath a veneer of a down to business mentality.

Leona came to a chair at the dining table and buried her face into her hands before groaning in frustration. She felt rather certain that this situation was about to get messy fast. The lieutenant could do nothing but prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

(* * * * * * *)

John moved about the outer perimeter of the Palace walls trying to find a way in without being noticed. Eventually the Spartan was able to take advantage of the frantic activity going about the palace grounds and was able to scale a wall unnoticed. At one point John saw Katara and Toph trying to get in through the front entrance but thankfully the guard they were talking to, was doing his job.

The Master Chief stayed in the background shrouded by the shadows of the wall secretly hoping that the girls would give up on this charade and go home. Unfortunately Toph was a stubborn girl who would not take no for an answer. John soon noticed a carriage enter the massive court-yard. A man came out of the carriage door while a pair of Dai Li agents bowed to him. The Master Chief surmised that the man those agents were either their leader or at the very least an official of some importance.

It seemed that at that moment Katara had an idea. She walked over to the man who had just exited the carriage and decided to speak with him. For a moment the Master Chief observed this with confusion and curiosity; wondering what exactly the water bender was up to. John strained his hearing to figure out what Katara was saying a complete stranger, but he was unable due to the background noise emanating from the mass of people who crowded the courtyard. Surprisingly enough this man who was a complete stranger had decided to help Toph and Katara enter into the front entrance without any trouble. John didn't like this situation from the start and he sure hell did not like it now. Something about the mystery man who was presently escorting the girls into the party that didn't sit well with the Spartan. He couldn't place it exactly but the man just seemed shifty.

An outside observer may simply assumed John was being paranoid. However the Master Chief had worked in the field long enough to have learned the value of trusting his instincts. And now his instincts where telling that this mystery man was dangerous and that the children would need to be forcibly removed from the situation ASAP before things got out of hand.

Avatar and his friends planed this debacle on a whim and now, it seemed that John's fears seemed to be right on the money. For a moment the soldier considered whether or not he was overreacting. However something at back of his head told him that considering the stranger's connections with the Dai Li; it would best to err on the side of caution.

The Spartan knew right away that it would be impossible to get in through the main entrance without making a scene. Being discovered was the last thing that he wanted at the moment. John took the time to think. He knew that there would be alternatives he just had to find them.

The Spartan started his search by continuing along the perimeter of the courtyard from atop the same wall he had stood on to observe the girls at the front entrance. Eventually he spotted an opening he could exploit. The security seemed rather lax at the side entrances. John supposed that it was probably because it was a servant's entrance.

The Master Chief looked around to make sure that no one was watching him before sprinting to the entrance and skidding to halt inches from the door frame. John peered through the door way. He was in a hurry but, that didn't prevent him from being cautious. He needed to avoid being discovered and getting forced into a fight. Especially since this time he was armed with nothing more than a combat knife and a silenced pistol. And contrary to popular belief a silencer did not completely remove the sound of a gun shot, rather it muffled the noise; thus lowering the odds of someone discovering that a gun had been fired until the shooter had left the area.

It wasn't had to navigate for John to navigate his way back to the party; he simply followed the noise. Soon enough he saw Aang and Sokka back to back disguised as busboys serving refreshments. They were involved in a conversation. It was obvious that they were looking for something or someone. There was a brief comical moment when a familiar brown and white tail was sticking out of the tall white hat Aang was wearing and began wagging in Sokka's face much to his annoyance. It didn't take long for the tribesman to decide that he had enough of Momo's antics and shoved the tail back into Aang's hat. Soon afterward as John's often amazing, universe defying luck would have it, he caught sight of Toph and Katara. John decided that this would be a good chance to intercept them and drag the kids back home. Unfortunately at this moment the Master Chief's luck became a double edge sword. Because Joo Dee their annoying tour guide had appeared just he felt that he was close enough to engage the children in a private conversation about thinking things through and how they were going back to house whether they liked it or not. However it seemed that fate seemed intent on screwing with the Master Chief at this time. Interestingly enough John was now close enough to hear the unease in Joo Dee's voice.

"What are you doing here? You have to leave immediately, or we will be in terrible trouble!"

"Not until we see the king." Sokka countered while blocking the woman's path with a serving tray.

"You don't understand. You must go." Joo Dee responded.

On one level John felt somewhat sympathetic to Joo Dee's plight. Like everyone else in this accursed city she was just another victim under the thumb of the Dai Li. And to her credit she at least seemed aware of the danger lurking in the dark corners of the palace and the city. From what the Master Chief had been able to find out, it seemed that he that the Dai Li didn't like it when people didn't play by their rules. Unfortunately the Children seemed unaware of the danger that seemed to be running head long into without realizing it. And to make matters worse Aang inadvertently ended up blowing his own cover when, Joo Dee shoved Sokka who in turn bumped into Aang.

This of course caused Aang to lurch forward and spill water on one of the guest. The woman who Aang had her clothing, make up and hair turned into a soggy mess. Aang of course apologized and asked the lady not to panic as he used a gust of wind to blow dry the woman's entire body. This of course not ony dried the woman's clothing but also made her clothing, make up and hair a mess. It also had the detrimental effect of compromising Aang's disguise as the gust of air blew of the hat that had been hiding the blue arrow that had been tattooed to his head, along with Momo, who had been sitting on under the hat. The woman Aang had bumped into and air dried earlier was shocked for a moment before smiling in amazement.

"The Avatar! I didn't know the Avatar would be here."

In that moment Joo Dee's jovial facade became an expression of genuine dread. Aang grinned sheepishly as the eyes of all the guests in attendance the party were on him. The avatar responded to the sudden attention by blushing with nervous laughter and waving shyly at the people now staring. This gave Sokka an idea as he leaned over to Aang and whispered into his ear.

"You keep their attention while I look for the king."

It soon became clear that Aang was better as a distraction than he was at doing reconnaissance. The Avatar was able to keep the attention of the party guests by jumping out of the busboy uniform he was disguised in earlier and landing atop a table. Aang started bending liquid from the various cups of the guest seated at the table. Next the air bender began balancing on a pitcher and brought the accumulated liquid over his head into a multicolored swirling orb. While every one was pleasantly distracted by the young Avatar's antics, Sokka vanished into the crowd; watching and waiting for the Earth King to make an appearance at the party.

John kept out of view, hidden behind a giant lion statue on the outskirts of the courtyard. so far it seamed that everything that could go wrong with situation, was quite likely to go wrong. Every time the Spartan thought that he may have had a chance of discreetly making contact with one of the children, something always came up. Either they vanished into the crowd moments later or there were too many prying eyes. In any case it seemed to John's perspective that because the Avatar and his friends had chosen to rush into this situation half cocked, that this mission of their's was botched up from the beginning.

This wasn't the way you ran an op; you didn't just wing it! You needed to plan them through. From what John was aware of it seemed very likely that the children had no exit strategy. In fact the master chief felt certain that Aang and his friends hadn't planned this out at all. Let o how they were going to escape from the palace if things got out of hand.

_**These kids have no idea what they're doing.**_

Eventually John caught sight of a curtained palanquin carried by eight guards. He assumed that whomever was in the palanquin was the Earth King that these kids were so eager to meet. It was also at this time that the gaangs eagerness overrode their caution. Aaang, being impulsive like many children his age tended to be; rushed head long down the table he been performing John observed as one by one all of the children were eventually intercepted by Dai Li agents. Sokka was the first to be captured, as attempted to navigate is way through the crowd. The tribesman tried to follow the Earth King when a of Dai Li agents grabbed him from behind and restrained his arms while leading him away from the earth king through the crowd.

John then observed a Dai Li agent appear from behind a pillar, causing him to reach for his suppressed pistol. However John noticed that presently the agent's attention was not focused on him but rather on Toph and Katara. The Dai Li agent's hands looked as if they were covered in gloves made from hardened clay. The agent thrust his hands forward causing a group of outstretched stone hands to come towards the two girls. One pair of stone hands captured toph while Katara was looking away. One hand grabbed the blind girl from behind while another covered the blind girl's mouth to keep her from calling out. Within moments katara was apprehended in the same way.

While this had all been happening the Master Chief had considered whether or not to intervene. In the end he decided against any premature actions. John reasoned that he could follow the ones who had detained the children and find a way to break them out later.

The Spartan faded back into the shadows, behind a pillar while observing that Aang being naive and inattentive rushed toward the end of a long dinning table riding atop a cushion of air made from a swirling ball of wind. John inched closer to the Avatar in the hopes that perhaps he could at least get the Air bender to see common sense. It was quite obvious that was that Aang was completely oblivious about happened. When the kid reached the end of the elongated dinning table, he stood up and thrust his hands up in triumph.

Moments later the Master Chief noticed the same stranger he saw the same stranger who had escorted Toph and Katara into the party approach Aang at the table. John wasn't exactly sure what was going on but he was able to get a name to go with the face of this stranger as he introduced himself. The Stranger's name was Long Feng.

After Introducing himself, Long Feng gestured for Aang to follow him. The avatar hesitated for moment before hopping of the table and following Long Feng. The Master Chief was not far behind. The Spartan followed the group until they came to a pair large doors. John slowly crept forward towards the the double doors. The had an odd feeling that told him that, he was being watched as he stopped inches from the double doors and noticed three dots on the motion tracker of his HUD directly behind him. The Master Chief spun around quickly to address the situation and see three Dai Li agents standing in front of him. The Dai Li agents said nothing and gave no warning before attacking.

The Dai Li's approach may have worked on the Avatar and his friends but the Master Chief was a whole different story. John quickly shifted his body to the side as the stone hands flew forward to restrain him. However the Spartan move too fast for the flying stone hands to get a grip on him. In retaliation John grabbed his pistol and fired three double taps; two rounds into each one of the three assailants. The Spartan heard a soft rumbling sound and quickly pivoted a full 180 and met the fourth attacking Dai Li agent with a thunderous uppercut to his gut. The Dai Li agent instantly folded beneath the raw power of the Spartan's blow and began gag as he started to cough up bile from his mouth and throw up on the floor. Moments later the green armoured grabbed the Dai Li agent by the face and slammed the back of his head against the stone wall; leaving an ichorous red trail of blood as he slowly slumped down to the floor.

With in no more than thirty seconds the Master Chief downed four Dai Li agents with what seemed as little to no effort. The Spartan took a long breath through his nostrils. He couldn't fault some one for doing their duty, but on the other John wasn't about to let himself be captured if he could help it.

The Spartan took a moment to stow the bodies in a room to the side before making his way back to the double doors. John then carefully placed the side of his head to over hear Toph's voice.

"He's your puppet!"

"Oh, no, no." John overheard Long Feng respond, "His Majesty is an icon, a god to his people. He can't sully his hands with the hourly change of an endless war."

"Sounds like a figurehead to me." Cortana spoke aloud to her companion. "Sounds to me like our new friend Long Feng is making excuses as to why he is overstepping his authority."

"Quiet!" The Spartan disciplined with a harsh raspy whisper

"Fine." Cortana pouted.

The Master Chief admonished the AI by slapping the side of his helmet before hearing Sokka's response.

"But we found out about a solar eclipse that will leave the Fire Nation defenseless. You could lead an invasion..."

Long Feng however would hear none of it and retorted angrily at Sokka with admonishment.

"Enough, I don't want to hear your ridiculous is the strict policy of Ba Sing Se that the War not be mentioned within the news of an escalating war will throw the citizens of Ba Sing Se into a state of panic."

John didn't feel surprised by the officials response. In fact he knew ahead of time that civilians were hardly ever listened to regards to military affairs unless recruited in to special projects sponsored by the government. Even then these civilians were simply seen as consultants who had little say or authority, except in regards to own projects. Provided that those said projects gave results that showed promise to justify continued funding.

The Master Chief kept his ear to the door as Long Feng continued speaking.

"Our economy would be ruined. Our peaceful way of life, our traditions would disappear. In silencing talk of conflict, Ba Sing Se remains a peaceful, orderly utopia. The last one on Earth."

John snorted at this comment. He knew bullshit when he heard it. For him it was no better than asking an ONI spook for clarification on an upcoming op only to be politely told that you on a need to know basis simply because he knew something that he did not want you to find out. The Master Chief shook his head in disappointment when it became more apparent how naïve the kids were; as made evident by Katara and Aang's responses. They just didn't get that Long Feng didn't give damn what they thought. The leader of the Dai Li would things as he saw fit and he was not about to let anyone get in the way of that. Not even the Avatar. Even as this line of thought went on inside of John's head Aang boldly stated his disagreement. His words caused the soldier to glare at the ceiling.

"'ll tell them! I'll make sure everyone knows!"

Long Feng responded with ominous words.

"Until now, you've been treated as our honored guest. But from now on, you will be watched every moment by Dai Li agents. If you mention the War to anyone, you will be expelled from the city. I understand you've been looking for your bison. It would be quite a shame if you were not able to complete your quest. Now, Joo Dee will show you to your home."

The children looked to see Joo Dee with faces of surprise. the woman in front of them was not same person that they met upon entering Ba Sing Se.

"Come with me, please." The new Joo dee spoke.

"What happened o Joo Dee?" Katara asked.

"Im Joo Dee." The woman answered with a bow. " I'll be your host as long as you're in our wonderful city."

At that moment John decided to execute a door breaching maneuver. With hard front kick the Master Chief hit the doors with enough force to cause them to slam against the walls. The Spartan then entered the room with pistol drawn as he scanned the room with a hearth lit with green fire for any hostile presence. It was needless to say that, the armored giant was met with looks of shock and surprise. That was every one save for Toph who said, "Look, the cavalry is here."

"What is the meaning of this!" Long Feng demanded.

"I came to crash a party." John understated in response. "It takes a big man to threaten children doesn't it?"

"You listening in the entire time. That means that you should already know the consequences of..."

"Ruining your fun time?" John interrupted. "You're a corrupt government official who has overstepped and abused his authority. From what I can see, you should be relieved of your duties and replaced by some one who is more competent and responsible."

"I can make you disappear." Long Feng warned.

"Your men already tried that." The Spartan answered as he walked up to Long Feng and glared down into his eyes. "They didn't do a good job. And for the record, I have a warning of my own. You so much as make one aggressive at my team or these kids, I will take a knife and slowly split your stomach open. Trust me, if you try anything I can and I will find you."


End file.
